DEAF MACHINE: Found Noises CD Raubbau

 DEAF MACHINE: Found Noises CD Raubbau

For those of you who may go ‘who’ right now, Deaf Machine is the project of Mikael Svensson, the founding member of oppressive black ambient genius that is / was Megaptera.

Pretty much safe to say then that ‘Found Noises’ isn’t going to be a happy affair then, especially with track titles such as ‘Death Season’, ‘Silent Intruder’ and ‘Noise Destruction’ to play with.  Good.

Deaf Machine originated around 1991 and earned a cult following amongst the death industrial fraternity. This was a low-fi analogue response to other music producers at the time, a lash out against the use of computers keeping the perspective as natural as possible.  Indeed Deaf Machine only had a couple of releases imported to the world via cassette tape, and you don’t get much more old school than that.  DM only appeared on a couple of occasions after that on compilations, disappearing, not to be heard of again until now.

Lucky for us the German label Rabbau have picked up these long forgotten sounds and have decided to release these works again bit for the first time on CD.  Found Noises is the first fruits of this new found friendship.

DM has a knack of pulling on the samples to great effect, wrap this up with analogue synth, electric food mixers (?!), four track analogue cassette decks, video and radio sounds and you are going to get the idea exactly where Michael was coming from with these tracks.  The thing is its all done with consummate professionalism.  Songs such as ‘Reaction’ are as great as any I have heard within this genre, with fleeting undercurrents of emotional pads that glue together underneath the ambient drone and noise.  It begs you to turn the volume up to the max, and is utterly rewarding when you do.

One for the old timers out there from this scene and a lesson to be learned for those who think they know it all whilst purchasing the latest offerings from CMI.

8.5/10