mike shiflet: merciless

Type follow up Mike Shiflet's Sufferers with a further exposition of his individual and far-reaching sound palette. A member of C Spencer Yeh's revolving Burning Star Core unit, and a prolific collaborator with the likes of Daniel Menche, Chris Corsano, Pete Swanson and many others, Shiflet has honed an intensely visceral feel for tone and texture which makes his records so intriguing to lovers of experimental composition and music-making. With some production/audio mastering assists from fellow Columbus, Ohio-based musician Joe Panzner, on Merciless Shiflet engages with corrosive textures from the off, enticing us in with fractured small sounds on "Feeble Breaths" before weaving a lattice of quick-drying fiberglass strands over your cochlea, which become infested with scuttling, insipid rhythms and abstract noise abrasions designed by Panzner on the lloopp software for max/msp. This induction, by contrast, makes the second half piece of evolving horror drones in "Exodus And Exile" that much more affective, while the second side plays through as one longer, queasy composition veering from cacophonous noise to wheezing drone and chilly isolation with the contribution of cassette manipulation by Jason Zeh, cello by Marina Peterson and violin from C Spencer Yeh. Cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Limited vinyl pressing of 500 copies only.