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Nolan Dialta LP // Nolan Dialta
Label: Cutting Room Records
Format: Digital/Cassette
Release Date: 26/01/2015
Nolan Dialta’s two seasonal offerings, ‘Christmas’ & ‘Christmas II’ didn’t receive any winter chart nominations. Aside from the fact they weren’t even released by the 25th (if that’s not subversive I don’t know what is), their lack of any discernible melody or rhythm probably would’ve got in the way anyway. As with much of the rest of the Cutting Room Records release LP, the two offerings can loosely be termed as drone, complete with the usual traits (claustrophobia, paranoia etc). In short it sounds like your kitchen radio has been possessed by a poltergeist and it’s fucking glorious.
The gloomy ambience which dominates the record has much in common with the kind of dense, fog-laden atmospheres you might expect to open a Raime or Demdike Stare track - the difference here is that these sounds don’t let up for a single moment. ‘-ment’ for example shudders across five minutes, grating synths drilling away everything in their path. At times the track feels as if it may be about to transition out of Dialta’s oppressive soundscapes, before another nauseating wave of plummeting drones signals the start of another round of the cycle.
Penultimate track ‘Gloam’ is about as close to conventionality as the LP gets, which is saying something as it could hardly be considered accessible. Stumbling kicks lurch drunkenly to and fro, pinning down waves of static constantly threatening to career out of control.
There is something Kafka-esque about the general listening experience - travelling through Dialta’s labyrinth of warbling distortion and groaning soundscapes, it’s easy to feel disorientated. Transitioning from ‘Birthday’ into ‘Slow Hole’ the difference is almost inaudible - Dialta making his progression across the album at a tortuous pace which is all the more fitting of its aforementioned Kafka-link. Brighton based CRR has cropped up on my radar several times over the last twelve months, and Nolan Dialta’s LP inaugurates 2015 for the label in fine style.
- Published
- Jan 15, 2015
- Credits
- Words by Theo Darton-Moore