Though it’s been almost four years since Puddle mastermind Dan Valetic was interviewed by Brisbane (Meanjin) blog Language of the Damned, and doubtless many of the artists’ opinions and approaches have evolved since then, it’s still true that the project is “harsh noise/power electronics for the end of the world.” He also discusses the influence he owes to early industrial acts like SPK and how it informs the “uncomfortable intensity” and “sense of foreboding chaos” in his work, currents that reach a fever pitch with What You Don’t Know Will Hurt You. The C60—Puddle’s third entry in the stacked catalog of local imprint Minimal Impact (also interviewed by LotD back in 2023)—grafts the best appendages of previous material onto a new and improved metallic mutant, the degraded fidelity and strangled howls of The Gift That Keeps on Giving meeting the sparking powerline ferocity of Peeling Back the Layers of Unbridled Joy. Those tapes felt more like sketchbooks in terms of structure, gleaning appeal from their freeform drift and abundance of ideas, but this one is more focused right off the bat. Each of the tracks is a thrash of gain-maxed scrabble and white-hot feedback laid straight to tape via Valetic’s refined junkyard arsenal, tightly controlled despite the length. “The Endless Tentacles of an Evil Network” writhes in the mid to high register, trapped in stumbling stasis while subtly escalating tension. The heavy use of dry delay is the backbone of the A side, chittering away in the belly of the mix and rearing its head with piercing surges. Another essential ingredient is the gloriously abysmal recording quality, which serves as impediment-qua-complement to the noise. This is especially true in the case of the two B-side tracks that are even more stifled, clawing themselves out of inaudibility and trembling between stereo channels like sick animals—”Lambs Set for Slaughter,” if you will. Crank the volume to melt them out of their misery.
Copies are still available direct from the label. For those in the US, Skeleton Dust will soon have it in stock along with the other great tapes in the batch by ฝรั่ง and Sharps Formation.
Noise Not Music 