In everyday life, a white noise can refer to a sound like a fan blowing, something with vaguely hypnotic properties that can be used to help babies fall asleep. Something tells us that Bong-Ra's new album, Black Noise, is not about soothing lullabies. Whereas Jason Köhnen's project, which mixes electronic experimentation and black metal, seemed to have gone through a few phases of questioning, with its leanings towards doom and the atmospheric, Black Noise once again seems more tortuous...
In recent years, Köhnen has been able to unleash his avant-garde impulses in The Lovecraft Sextet, an opaque dark-jazz side-project. Is this the reason for a more pronounced return to electronica? Perhaps. Dystopic quickly sets the scene: IDM influences, guttural growls, the most deviant will probably want to dance. Bong-Ra basks in dissonance, piling on the surprises as if to keep listeners in a constant state of tension. Mechanical riffs, impenetrable darkness: we're dissected by Death#2 and shrivelled by the heaviness of Nothing Virus, before Köhnen lets Charles Manson have his say on Useless Eaters, with its hardcore techno touches that are both psychedelic and infernal.
Black Noise is a succession of menacing, twisted nightmares, a play on textures, between suffocating bass, anguished atmospheric tracks (the cinematic Bloodclot, Blissful Ignorance, which at times sounds like a cavernous requiem à la Skinny Puppy, metal version) and feverish hallucinations (Parasites and its sound-design of disgusting swarming things, unhealthy as can be). The doom cravings are always there, giving Bong-Ra a funereal heaviness that sometimes approaches a Trepaneringsritualen-style ritual. The industrial mixes with the mystical in its monolithic evocations, while cyberpunk future and ancestral relics (Ruins) blend together.
The sticky atmospheres, the sense of constant danger, the constant discomfort : Black Noise is a dark and impressive work of art, from which we emerge tested. Bong-Ra doesn't try to be over-affectionate or over-accessible, and all the better for it. This pioneer of electronic/extreme metal oddities has lost none of his talent for destabilizing, and these torments reeking of rust and blood are decidedly delicious, in their own way.
