Random Noize Sessions, Vol. 1

Rightly named due to its grab-bag nature, the short and often fragmentary Random Noize Sessions, Vol. 1 selects from tracks recorded by Marco Haas aka T. Raumschmiere from 1999 to 2005. What makes "noize" may surprise some listeners only familiar with his more straightforwardly aggressive work, as opening track "Radikal Meditation" is also well named, being a dark, murky float of a song not far removed from Pole's experimental dub (admittedly without the beats). The album's 11 selections generally explore this more restrained side to the explosiveness elsewhere. Even if everything from the crisp glitch-click of "Wer War Nochma Vermona?" to the shimmering keyboards of "In the Ghetto" (not a cover, so it seems) has clear antecedents in everything from Coil to Eno and back again, it's still something that has its own character emerging throughout, if only in fits and starts. Perhaps the slyest expression of T. Raumschmiere's ear for the dancefloor is how his beats and rhythms could easily be full-on body assaults — "So Leis' Wie Noch Nie" is a striking example, with its tight if minimal groove and huge drone keyboards. The closest it gets to hyperactivity is "GrobMotorOmsk (Holz Über Kopf)," with its driving drum punches and a sound like the world's biggest robot taking deep measured breaths. But a good chunk of the album resists even this parallel — especially the final cut, "Johannes/Absturz/Klatschen," which concludes with a surprising burst of echoed applause, suggesting a concert that hasn't actually occurred as heard here. Ultimately, Random Noize Sessions can't work as a unified experience — by its nature even good sequencing doesn't disguise the fact that these are each singular experiments probably best heard in isolation. But it still provides a gloweringly good time for those so inclined, and further explorations in this vein would not be unwelcome.