V/A-DITHYRAMBE, LP, 1988, FRANCE

a compendium of gorgeously dour, sour and drear filled sturm und drang concocted by sinister sounding R.I.O. operatives Shub Niggurath and their immediate satellites. For many, Shub Niggurath's take on the forbidding chamber rock continuum enacted by the likes of Univers Zero, Art Zoyd and Present was a genre topper, their baleful spin on this terrain supplanting the Stravinsky/Bartok dimension undergirding UZ/AZ's rock vitriol with the atonal astringency of Penderecki and Ligeti and that tone of severity and desolation is writ large across their 11+ harrowing minutes here. Dithyrambe begins on a rather more spare note, though: Ann Stewart's plaintive a cappella operatic recital setting a tone of down-in-the-mouth austerity thats a harbinger of vibes to comes. It's follow-up, a brutal display by the Shub Niggurath-related all electric bass ensemble Sleaze Art carves a fearsome and seemingly endless vista of detuned squalling doom from their massed axes, a tack that Sleaze Art's K.T. Toeplitz re-enacts in solo form on the album closer "Paysage Foudroye".

Track listing:

1. A. Stewart-L'homme A L'habit Gris
2. Sleaze Art-Orgone
3. Shub Niggurath-J'ai Naguere En Peinture Les Harpies Ravissant Le Repas De Phinee 2
4. K.T. Toeplitz-Paysage Foudroye

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