Sissy Spacek

Hope that no country music listener has been harmed by the harsh noise project Sissy Spacek. The outfit quickly became John Wiese's preferred channel to release his most extreme music. The self-titled album consists of 79 tracks totalling only 23 minutes of music. Only? Nah, it's enough — and not because of the harshness but of the light-speed cut-and-paste that quickly becomes dizzying. The closest comparison would be John Oswald's Plexure (from his plunderphonics series), although one is also reminded of the way Fantômas piece together tunes from the tiniest riffs. So here you have it: a harsh noise take on Oswald "plunderphoning" Mike Patton's band. As a matter of fact, editing represents the crux of the album. Obviously, this is not a continuous performance. Wiese had been hard at work pasting together this suite from all kinds of horrible noises provided by him and singer/noisician Cory Ronnau. The aural beating is relentless, angular, serrated. Wiese hardly leaves time for any sound to be identified — even Ronnau's imprecations, except for a very Patton-like passage in track 15 and some chopped up around the 60s. The suite suffers a bit from this "let's make it quick" prerogative. The listener comes out of it numb but hardly as stunned as after Sississpsskssissrs, in which Wiese achieves better results. ~ François Couture, Rovi