To complete this, his first, record, Sweden’s Skold worked with a number of producers, arguably the best in the industrial market, from Cybersank (Killing Joke) to Mark Walk (Ruby) to Howie Beno (Ministry) among others, almost as if he were afraid of “missing out” on some special, elusive secret.
Skold combines and draws from these various techniques of producing, manupilating and mutating sound as he seeks to build the aural landscapes of his own bleak “new frontier”. Skold’s world is not so much a downward spiral as a constant state of anomic, the soundtrack to a nightmare of isolation and ostracism (Chaos, Remember) from which the dreamer awakes only to find he is not dreaming.
Probably somewhat like the way characters in a David Lynch movie might feel.
While the underlaying message of many NIN songs is a plea for unconditional love that will break therough Trent Reznor’s primal fear that is the core of his self-loothing. Skold’s man-machine asks not for help, compassion or understanding, only that he be allowed to state his case and be left alone.
On “Dust To Dust” he concedes: It don’t matter/You can’t change it. “Void” comes close to sounding like what the Beatles might have been trying for on “I Am The Walrus”.
Amid its thick undergrowth of inorganic sounds, it is one of the more melodious songs on th erecord. Didn’t I actually recognize a piano in there somewhere? “P.A.M.F.” (Punk Ass Mother Fucker) is this record’s “Big Man with a Gun”, where Skold shouts the MF-word more times than any song I’ve ever heard that wasn’t a rap record. This is a remarkable debut effort and the best release of its kind so far this year. A cyber glimpse into the mind of Tim.
Gad Worley
