The one time I met Dominick Fernow aka Prurient, we were introduced at a Peter Sotos reading. It was the ex-Whitehouse sound collagist and current underground author himself who pointed Fernow out to me. Sotos seemed a fitting facilitator for the handshake, considering the debt Fernow owes Whitehouse for both his high-frequency noisemaking and the linkage he shares with the group via his dark subject matter. For instance, Black Vase is decorated with photos of Fernow's girlfriend posing in S&M; gear, images of foggy/misty landscapes, and the Freudian Buddhist quote, "Desire is the root of all suffering." Musically, for those more accustomed to the noise-rock of semi-catchy Lightning Bolt or Negative Approach-style Wolf Eyes, Black Vase will be a tough listen-- unlike those more popular feedback entities, Prurient makes no attempt at establishing even a demolished hook.
That said, if there ever were to be a crossover in the harsh noise, power-electronics scene, my money would be on Prurient. Hanging with the likes of Macronympha, Panicsville, Emil Beaulieau, Bloodyminded, Slogun, and Jessica Rylan, the Bushwick-based one-man-band plays his shows shirtless and, unlike many in the subterranean world of contact mics and feed-smack, can actually pull it off. Brandishing microphones, he prostrates himself before his amplifiers, wrestling with sound-waves and noosed cables, more reminiscent of a tar-souled Conor Oberst than an aging Wookie in black sweatpants.
Fernow's been at it a while. He started honing his assault in high school in Wisconsin before relocating to Providence, R.I., and then Brooklyn. This is his seventh full-length, or thereabouts, not counting a million splits and cassettes, etc. As in the past, his cocktail includes a heavily processed voice (shouting, growling), electronics, and synthesizer. On Black Vase, there's also tribal factory-cog percussion.
Black Vase is front loaded with the 15-minute "Roman Shower", a quavering high-pitch flutter. It's not busy or big: Fernow weaves a spare feedback strip that slips into your ear like hemlock. Even when it becomes something scruffier and the piece takes on more strands, Fernow remains focused: The pitch increases, but hardly fuzzes out-- the detailed tones are the whirl of a dental drill. For the final three minutes, he blows more gusts of distortion and then beneath it yowls, "Two years of garbage/ zig zag to your center/ come back to me."
The noise-zen focus on the longer tracks is admirable, but Fernow's briefer blasts are more sugar-shocked: "Silent Mary" is thumping scream-o; "Sorry Robin" evokes Throbbing Gristle committing hari-kari; "Back Cuts" pairs deep percussion with Fernow's order, "Face down/ On the floor"; and "Soft Crack" ups the pain, sonically and otherwise, with "Finger nails/ Riding boots/ Jalepeno pepper/ Kitchen floor." Ouch.
Prurient toured with Wolf Eyes in September 2005 and, perhaps in conjunction, Fernow released The Warriors split CD on his own well regarded Hospital Productions. For Wolf Eyes' two long tracks, "The Terror Tank" and "Human Animal", the Ann Arbor trio doesn't partake in their wicked-witch growls or humid jungle dub centipede dissections. Instead, knobs spin into a grotto and just sorta suffocate. At 17 minutes, "The Terror Tank" lurks within a dank cavern. "Human Animal"'s 11 minutes ream Prurient-style sounds like ring-tone feedback, electrocuted foil, decimated triangles. It's not Wolf Eyes' strongest showing, but it offers a fertile ambient nook.
Fernow's material for The Warriors was recorded in Providence in 2002; in the liner notes he recommends playing it loud on an "overcast afternoon." I've listened under those conditions, but also at 3 a.m., and it's some of his most piercing. In general, the program's warmer and more collagist than Black Vase-- because the pieces are shorter (check out the booming 43-second burning star core quagmire, "Rhythm of Shovels"), there are more gradation shifts. The sound: a film shutter exploding. Then there's "Lime" tripping like a pack of corralled hell hounds stuck in a vat of lye. "Ashen Morning Glory"'s another choked cable of boom-hiss ear rot. For a noirish rain-drenched thing, check out the finale, "Stripped Swimsuit". This one's high on atmosphere-- the sound of water or, uh, blood on concrete-- with noise slowly sliding in subtly, for only a couple frames, before the song goes away peacefully into the night.
Wolf Eyes is a bigger name than Prurient, so folks might run immediately for The Warriors split. That's cool-- it's a solid offering. But as mentioned previously, Prurient spits pure Whitehouse New Britain noise, so if you're tossing off the noise-rock training wheels for the first time, you might want to check out Black Vase, on which the added percussion offers something to latch onto when you're wading in Fernow's wave pool.
