Boyd Rice, that provocative Gnostic, desperately needs to go over the terms of his latest contract with the man downstairs-- he's getting a raw deal. After, I dunno, about a billion marginally more successful releases as Non, Rice's latest shout-out to Ol' Scratch, Children of the Black Sun, is bleak, "cinematic", and entirely un-fucking-listenable. I wouldn't call myself a fan of his earlier work, but before this burnt offering Rice could at least be counted on to produce albums of texture, substance, or even both-- each the absolute lifeblood of experimental music. The majority of this album, however, sounds like whatever noise I imagine might be produced by playing a vinyl record scratched to pure white.
Now I know how it feels to die for my audience. I've listened to this album several times, each listen more painful than the last, in an effort to warn you as effectively as I possibly can to stay away from it. Allow me to itemize the debt (you can count the sounds on this album without even taking off your shoes): an large brass section tunes-up on a single continuous tone for four minutes on "Black Sun"; a half-dozen extremely "dramatic" guitar notes are plucked on "Serpent of the Heavens"; three vocal samples, some rain... there might be a bee somewhere! Sweet crispy Christ, at least Receive the Flame had helicopters! Regardless, these noises only account for about 10% of the album. The other 90% is an irritatingly constant hum that fluctuates between "whine" and "causes brain cancer".
Oh, wait! Maybe I spoke too soon! There's also a DVD with a Dolby 5.1 mix on it! That's good, maybe the other 3.1 channels are the ones with the freakin' sounds on them. I can't wait to try this...
...Thirty-one minutes later, and my ordeal with this pile of aural leakage is finally complete. Now I can say with certainty that the only thing worse than enduring the low-level bass drone in two channels is being surrounded by it. Two channels won't confuse the basic fight-or-flight response provoked by this vacuum of an album because at least you'll know which way to run. Not so with the Dolby mix-- you won't know where to turn when this steaming pile comes at you from every direction at once! It's scarier than Jason X! But more frightening still is that someone thought this was a good idea. Rice's denser, less awful past work could benefit from this technology, but it's wasted here.
Now, if I were in a really generous mood, I would give Rice the benefit of the doubt and say that he was trying to produce something along the lines of Coil's drone masterwork Time Machines. I would also say, of course, that he neglected to realize the necessity of the hypnotic elements at work below the surface of its simple, lulling sines and cosines, and attempted to generate a similar effect through random fluctuations in the constant thrum of Children. Naturally, this utterly, irrevocably fails. Without some sort of underlying organization to the drone, it resembles white noise and is readily tuned out, leaving little-to-nothing left to hold the listener. If that was Rice's aim, then, perhaps, he succeeds, but that the result is comprised of near-white noise is hardly something to smile about.
But you know what? I'll even go a step further. Rather than just bitching about how astoundingly empty this Non-release is, I'll offer a positive alternative (I'm Libra, I strive for balance). Go to the kitchen and find two appliances-- toasters, cuisinarts, blenders, what have you. Hold one in each hand. Smash them together for fifteen minutes. Now you've just had as much fun (if not more) than listening to Children of the Black Sun, and in half the time. Don't say I never gave you anything.
