wanda group: a slab about being held captive

Washed up on the shores of Brighton UK, we find A Slab About Being Held Captive laying there quietly in the sand. This soaking enigma is the latest creation of Louis Johnstone, following up an influx of recent vinyl on Opal Tapes, Notown, Where To Now?, and Svetlana Industries. Since their debut release Bass Urine on NNA in 2011, Wanda and the girls have matured to a new point of refinement, sinking deeper into the careful organization of disconcerting sounds. A Slab truly is a seasick collage, with a pervading aqueous essence flowing throughout the two side-long pieces, carrying along with it fragments of field and domestic recordings and sample clutter. Syrupy waves of sound meld into one another with cinematic pacing, forming a gelatinous backdrop for hard cut interjections of concréte style sample manipulation, lending themselves to an air of confusing tension. As the liquid bath abruptly turns to slate, a group of gulls squawk at a bubble filled with muffled porno moans as they glide by. Body sounds and animal conversations are drowned out by the mechanical purrs of an industrial assembly line, sputtering and choking their last breaths as they struggle to stay afloat. Maddening tones seem to permeate from within, sizzling their way through the stereo field like two magnets dancing, drilling through the headspace. This hypnotic phenomenon forces the mind inward, reducing it to a skull full of opiate brain mush and half-cooked soggy memories. These collections of moments may fall shamelessly into near-nothingness at any given time, eventually refilling themselves with sound in a cyclical rising and falling, perhaps acting as an abstract reflection on mental states of indifference, alienation, or just general life terror and bleakness. Wanda's ability to maintain compositional fluidity throughout such a dynamic range of materials is reinforced by an original sense of movement and pacing, and the ability to form a creative symbiosis between cold sterility and organic warmth." Includes mp3 download.