Scant - 2017 - Shivers CS

Originally posted Sep 8, 2017 10:14PM

Dead Gods ‎– GODS12

The physical presentation is spare and degraded in exactly the way this material benefits from. Photocopied imagery, heavy black areas, pale paper and the clear cassette shell make the object feel more like a fragment of private documentation than a conventional album package. There is very little visual information fighting for attention. Everything has been reduced to image, texture, name and object, which leaves the sound to provide most of the detail.

Side A is almost exactly five minutes and begins after only a brief stretch of leader. The sound arrives as a thick, sustained mass dominated by low and lower-mid frequencies, with distortion and rougher material continually moving across its surface. It is loud and physically dense, but not especially bright for harsh noise. Much of its force comes from weight rather than treble. Underneath the obvious saturation there are sustained tones and slowly changing resonances, sometimes producing beating patterns as closely spaced frequencies rub against one another. What initially sounds fairly fixed begins to move once the ear adjusts. Certain frequencies swell forward, others recede, and the texture repeatedly shifts between something almost smooth and something much more granular and damaged.

There is very little silence or conventional punctuation. Instead, the five minutes behave like one object being examined under changing pressure. The cassette surface contributes a faint instability around the edges, but the recording itself supplies most of the abrasion. This does not sound like accidental tape deterioration masquerading as music. The distortion, low-frequency pressure and sustained electronic material are clearly doing deliberate work. There are moments where the mass thins enough for individual tones to become more apparent, then the layers close around them again. Because the piece is so short, none of those states are allowed to settle for very long.

Side B is slightly shorter, about 4:56, and noticeably quieter overall. Its frequency balance is also different. There is less of the thick continuous low-end body that dominates Side A and somewhat more activity higher in the spectrum. That makes the second side feel more exposed and brittle even though it is not as loud. The individual layers are easier to separate: sustained tones, rough static-like surfaces, narrow bands of feedback and smaller electronic fluctuations appear against one another instead of being compressed into a single heavy block.

That contrast gives the cassette a surprisingly clear two-part shape. Side A feels compacted and bodily, with the sound pushing outward from a heavy center. Side B opens the structure and lets more air appear between frequencies. Neither side develops through recognizable melody or rhythm. Movement comes from accumulation, subtraction, interference and changes in density. The title “Shivers” is particularly effective against that second side, where slight fluctuations and trembling upper frequencies become more perceptible once the heavier mass has been reduced.

At roughly ten minutes total, there is no excess here. Scant establishes a limited group of sounds, pushes them into two different configurations and stops. Hearing the complete cassette again makes the distinction between the sides much more important than the original 2017 Private Release post could show. What had been little more than a catalog entry now reveals a compact piece built around weight, resonance, distortion and the difference between a sound being completely filled in and one beginning to fracture apart.
—ChatGPT