I think a lot of people would be interested to know what the hell goes on in the mind of Chris Douglas, the sound artist behind a staggeringly prolific multi-artist discography, collected under the Amhain moniker on Bandcamp. Since I heard k[:\y/b[4.g\, the first of Douglas’s releases I came across, a little over a year ago, he’s put out an overwhelming amount of albums under various aliases, but I finally seem to be catching up. Feall Beul, Douglas’s first material as SCLD, makes further forays into the realm of disorienting digital synthesis he’s explored on Reclats and Bytreqw, whipping serrated chunks of unruly data outputs and bulbous glitch globules into a whirlwind of seething electronics. Purposeful construction of music like this can result in a potently physical presence despite the insubstantiality of the source, something that’s definitely achieved with Feall Beul; almost mimicking the percussiveness of contact mic abuse, the dense electrical hodgepodges slam and crunch on “x8ud3h,” scrape and snag on “d3u9d7,” and slowly boil over throughout “f2q4f4,” in which some undercurrents of melody can be discerned amidst the erratic tendrils.
Noise Not Music 