DEATH
For the Whole World to See
(Drag City)

WHAT PLEASING THE
LORD LOOKS LIKE
MARRIAGE
Extreme Noise...and Terror from
Israel & Japan
(Heart & Crossbone)

THE SETTING SON
Spring of Hate
(Bad Afro)

FORCA MACABRA
Aqui e o Inferno
(Agipunk)

POSEIDOTICA
La Distancia
(Aquatalan)

A DEATH CINEMATIC
A Parable on the Aporia of
Vengeance and the Beauty of 
Impenetrable Sadness

(Self Released)

HUMAN QUENA 
ORCHESTRA
The Politics of the Irredeemable

(Crucial Blast)

MORE REVIEWS

I used to play a quena in the Andes when I was a kid, so I take this one personally. It’s close to my heart. Once, my father in the high mountains handed me this gorgeous quena that had been handcrafted by his great grandfather. He, my great great grandfather, was an Incan like Pachacutec. He was also strong like a miniature Greek god. When my father gave me the quena he solemnly said, ‘take care of it as you take care of your own life’. I took that to heart. He was looking at the sun when he pronounced those words, so even though I was a joker, I understood he meant fucking business. Unfortunately, I spent the first twenty years of my life in a haze of hard drugs, cheap alcohol and STD infected whores. As a result, I don’t know what happened to my father’s quena, but I might have exchanged it for some blow back in the late 90’s.

Listening to this second effort by Pittsburgh’s Human Quena Orchestra I can only wonder what the ancestors would think of it. I am pretty certain they’d ask me to double check if there is an actual quena here. And if so, they’d ask me if it is human shaped. They’d also ask me, 'what the hell is it with all the noise anyway?' Then they would probably order me to shut it off.

The thing with folkloric instruments is they belong to geographical areas and the sounds they exude perfectly match the landscape. This overwhelmingly massive block of really slow moving sounds seems vast, as such it matches the immensity of the Andes. This also sounds cold, and by experience I can tell you it gets pretty chilly up in the peaks.

Listening to the industrialized doom of the Human Quena Orchestra makes me wonder how is it that music like this is made. Maybe this isn’t even music, but that’s besides the point. Plenty of times when I think that there might not even be any ‘live’ instruments I lose interest. I am fairly sure that all the freezing distortion I here hear is a guitar, alas is distorted beyond recognition and it seems as if it has been refrigerated for a few weeks.

The pace isn’t marked by any chords, you can only make it up by listening to the giant thumps that section the songs. Dragged frosty vocals also show. They only add to the ambience and impossible bigness and give The Politics of the Irredeemable a previously unattained evil edge.

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