Aquarius Records reviews AGNES, CD-R available thru Field Studies:
Oh, Agnes. We know nothing about you, but you make such hermetically strange drones and noises. Given the utter lack of information - just a name and the sounds on this 3”cd-r - the triangulation towards something like the hauntological noisescaping of Haxan Cloak might be appropriate or maybe the electro-shock rhythms of a latter-day Aaron Dilloway might serve as an apt comparison. That contextual void is a defining characteristic of the Agnes recordings, as she (we’ll assume this to be a she) makes compellingly skeletal pieces that orbit around the defined camps of witchy electronics, pulse-tone minimalism, analogue fetishism, oblique experimentation, industrial mind control, and hell, let’s throw Fluxus in the mix, cuz that could definitely fit with what she does.
There was a Frans De Waard project many moons ago called Goem that took its cues from Pan Sonic and Ryoji Ikeda, but what made Goem really interesting was that many of the rhythms were created from an obsolete medical device which was designed to heal and massage damaged muscles, tendons, and nerves through electrical pulses. Of course, Goem turned that into a rhythm box, and something similar could be the source for Agnes’ electro-pulse minimalism. However, Agnes does this WAY better than Goem, whatever she may be using, bringing a mid-tempo voltage control pulse to the first track with cryptically sourced hisses and wheezing tones that surely must be electrical in nature. The second track finds the rhythm more disjointed and its electrical signals overdriven with a whumping bass distortion that would be hard to fabricate within a digital workstation. A strangely percolating half-melody of what might be a feedback loop or might even be a shortwave utility signal beacon repeating around this squelching rhythm. Both tracks never remain static but are constantly shifting, twisting, and morphing. Brilliant stuff. Limited to 70 copies.
