Review from Fodderstompf website
The title track "Killer in the Crowd" features a "Funhouse/Search and Destroy" sheet metal guitar line, a slash and burn approach with its distortion and overload. Levene's voice is low in the mix, scratchy and hoarse, but it works well within this metallic funk format.This is not the psychologically introspective and temporally phased Levene sound as featured in tracks like "Theme," but rather a sheer noise pugnaciousness. Feedback and a brief harmonics-led solo take over the track, until an Eno-esque keyboard pulse intrudes effectively into the mix, like a disorienting undertow (Shades of Eno's "King's Lead Hat" here, from 1977's "Before and After Science".)
"Aztek Dubbed" is a strange track, cinematic in its scope. It's also strange in that perspectives on time appear stretched and distorted to the listener here, as the patterns unfold. Ship's sirens and submarine tones open the song, creating a spacious depth charge-like rhythm --- What sounds like samples of Iranian stringed instruments add a depth and historicism to the mix, whilst a dubbed timbale tone roto tom snare, backed with scraping percussion, drives the track forward. Harmonics and cross tones soar upwards, lifting the melody, bringing to mind Karlheinz Stockhausen's "Stimmung." The heated atmospherics of the piece are reminiscent of Jon Hassell's "Possible Worlds" compositions.
Once Wobble left PIL he created intense and meditative work with the likes of Eno, Jon Hassell, Harold Budd and Can's Holger Czukay : this track "Aztek Dubbed" allows us to imagine how it might have been then, if it had indeed been Levene who had worked with them instead --- It is not too far distant in its impressionism from tracks like "Left Where it Fell" from Wobble and Eno's collaboration album, "Spinner."
"Object B," with it's violin loop samples, icy metallic chords and hard drum structures sounds uncanilly like Zeppelin's "Kashmir" at points.
From jamming with Viv Albertine and a young John Beverly in 1976, onwards to writing "What's my Name," then onto "Metal Box" and "Flowers of Romance"--- And now Murder Global---- It's been a long journey for Levene. This EP shows us the contrasts of Levene's imagination, from distorted raw power to a good use of silence, space and atmospherics.
What Levene needs now is a wider, full album context to flex his imagination within, to give it more space and a structure ( or anti structure ) to expand. It would also be good to see him working and collaborating with other notable talents once again too --- To see once again what arises from the friction, test,conflict and challenge of Levene working closely with the creative insights of others .It worked well for Wobble in his post PIL days ( working with Jaki Liebezeit,Bill Laswell,Ernest Ranglin etc ) and would surely do the same for Levene.
This e.p, is available in Spotify
The title track "Killer in the Crowd" features a "Funhouse/Search and Destroy" sheet metal guitar line, a slash and burn approach with its distortion and overload. Levene's voice is low in the mix, scratchy and hoarse, but it works well within this metallic funk format.This is not the psychologically introspective and temporally phased Levene sound as featured in tracks like "Theme," but rather a sheer noise pugnaciousness. Feedback and a brief harmonics-led solo take over the track, until an Eno-esque keyboard pulse intrudes effectively into the mix, like a disorienting undertow (Shades of Eno's "King's Lead Hat" here, from 1977's "Before and After Science".)
"Aztek Dubbed" is a strange track, cinematic in its scope. It's also strange in that perspectives on time appear stretched and distorted to the listener here, as the patterns unfold. Ship's sirens and submarine tones open the song, creating a spacious depth charge-like rhythm --- What sounds like samples of Iranian stringed instruments add a depth and historicism to the mix, whilst a dubbed timbale tone roto tom snare, backed with scraping percussion, drives the track forward. Harmonics and cross tones soar upwards, lifting the melody, bringing to mind Karlheinz Stockhausen's "Stimmung." The heated atmospherics of the piece are reminiscent of Jon Hassell's "Possible Worlds" compositions.
Once Wobble left PIL he created intense and meditative work with the likes of Eno, Jon Hassell, Harold Budd and Can's Holger Czukay : this track "Aztek Dubbed" allows us to imagine how it might have been then, if it had indeed been Levene who had worked with them instead --- It is not too far distant in its impressionism from tracks like "Left Where it Fell" from Wobble and Eno's collaboration album, "Spinner."
"Object B," with it's violin loop samples, icy metallic chords and hard drum structures sounds uncanilly like Zeppelin's "Kashmir" at points.
From jamming with Viv Albertine and a young John Beverly in 1976, onwards to writing "What's my Name," then onto "Metal Box" and "Flowers of Romance"--- And now Murder Global---- It's been a long journey for Levene. This EP shows us the contrasts of Levene's imagination, from distorted raw power to a good use of silence, space and atmospherics.
What Levene needs now is a wider, full album context to flex his imagination within, to give it more space and a structure ( or anti structure ) to expand. It would also be good to see him working and collaborating with other notable talents once again too --- To see once again what arises from the friction, test,conflict and challenge of Levene working closely with the creative insights of others .It worked well for Wobble in his post PIL days ( working with Jaki Liebezeit,Bill Laswell,Ernest Ranglin etc ) and would surely do the same for Levene.
This e.p, is available in Spotify