Form Grows Rampant - The Threshold Houseboys Choir (2007)

Ideated from: a writeup on The Quietus about the recent reissue of the record

Note: The record starts with some high pitched noise that I found so grating I almost bailed on the whole thing. If you’re in the same boat, I’d recommend skipping through to about 1:30 where the track starts fleshing out, or just skipping track 1 entirely. It’s like cheating at solitaire: you decide what counts as cheating, and I won’t tell on you.

This is some of the last work of the late Peter Christopherson. He was a member of two famous groups: experimental / industrial collective Throbbing Gristle in the 70s and the industrial / drone / ambient outfit Coil in the 80s and 90s. A lot of those groups’ work is difficult listening, and I’m not here to sell you on it. But towards the end of his life Christopherson put together this collage of found sound and vocal samples into a pretty coherent piece of music, intended as a soundtrack to a film that I can’t find much info about. It’s challenging, like a lot of his work, but it’s definitely worth hearing.

Each of the first four tracks follows the same basic pattern: a sample of someone or something making more or less random sounds, looped until it starts to sound slyly musical on its own. Then it’s enhanced with a number of other instruments until there’s a more standard piece of music going on. It’s all very trance-like, especially on the longer tracks. The sounds don’t change much but they eventually take on a life of their own.

Tracks I Liked:

if you’re into this, they’re all pretty much of a piece with each other. The middle track is the longest and most developed. The last one is probably the most conventional, but also great.