Fake Snake – Instigate (Haunted Factory of Pain Music)
So like I know this guy from way back maaannnn. I actually released a CD on the previous label (now combined with Deaf Sparrow) of another of his crazy acts, Melted Cassettes, and was thus hoping for something of the sort. Lucky me, because his other incarnation, Fake Snake, while bringing to mind pleasant memories of cheap Hong Kong-origin jiggly toys, also provides a nightmarish glimpse into a dying, technological world. It does it over a vast amount of space, and with plenty of atmospheric bite instead of the more beat-centric work under the Melted Cassettes moniker. So let’s check out this Instigate.
Fake Snake crafts music of the haunting, decaying factory kind. Instigate relies more on presence than beats, though the latter there certainly are. There’s a clever, intricate usage of repeat patterns, especially noticeable when he goes the distance, like the final track, “Clapperclaw,” coming in at over 20 minutes. What makes this repetition important is it forces the brain to delve further into the sound, turning what first seems a broken cassette on repeat in a factory into a bizarrely meditative “the world dies around me” state. As technology degrades under his hands, Fake Snake stitches it together, feeding in disconcerting audio loops and electronic sounds so abused they’ve lost all sense of self, merging into a reborn monster. Instigate is excellent for its wildly dense assortment of sounds, but it carries a recognizable theme of corrosion that few noise artists are capable of developing. If it has any fault its that the repetition of certain parts may turn off the average listener, but that’s probably not you anyway.
Written by Stanley, Devourer of Souls
Fake Snake – Instigate
Cryptic Passage
Cover Art: Unknown
4.3 / 5
