The second of a pair of longform experimental ambient releases from
Richard H. Kirk's solo reboot of
Cabaret Voltaire,
BN9Drone is another apocalyptic soundscape filled with heavy washes of distortion and ominous voices that seem like broken transmissions from across a battlefield. Instead of building and paying off, the piece continually swarms and festers, occasionally flaring up with bursts of white noise or sharply modulated tones. Moments occur where it gets especially tense and noisy and feels like it's going to break through to another mood, but then it just falls back and passes. A raw horror synth melody pops up around 32 minutes, for example, but then it quickly seems to get sidetracked and covered in blankets of smog. There also seems to be deliberate sense of pacing to the piece, as there's space to breathe before each idea is introduced, but it also sounds loose and improvised. The hour-long effort works best in shorter doses. ~ Paul Simpson