Kreptkrept - Irregular Dark Beat
The guy in the cube next to me pops his head over the wall one afternoon with an annoyed look on his face. His mouth moves. "Excuse me?" I say, lifting the headphones from my ears. He pauses, cocks his head, and replies, "I've been talking to you for the last five minutes."
I point to the headphones. "Sorry," I say, "Couldn't hear you." I take the phones off and offer them across the cubicle wall. "Here, give it a try."
He puts them on -- I think the track is "Niddhog," a complete shit-storm of noise and beats -- and immediately jerks like he's had a couple hundred volts run through his molars. "Damn it," he swears, yanking the headphones off his head, "What the hell is that?"
I smile and put the headphones back on. "The good shit." Never did find out what he wanted. Kreptkrept must have knocked his train of thought right out of his skull. Good noise makes a savage weapon and Cordell Klier -- the one-man mayhem maker behind Kreptkrept -- knows this maxim and captures its full digital clarity on Irregular Dark Beat.
Frozen Empire Media is the U.S. stronghold for rhythmic noise and Cordell Klier's Kreptkrept record is one of their latest detonations. A re-interpretation of a very limited CD-R release among close friends of Mr. Klier called The Moon and the Fog, Irregular Dark Beat is exactly what it purports to be: a howling maelstrom of sound and fury, a cataclysmic wash of knives and glass and chattering steel. It is not the unrelenting wall of Merzbow feedback, but rather the carefully calculated application of rhythm and beat against a powerful tornado of sonic force.
"The Darkthrone" is the perfect theme music for Thulsa Doom if John Millius had been half-able to lens the evil magus as he should have been filmed. Martial drumming overwhelms the groaning chant of hooded monks. Caustic melodies squirm and dart throughout like hallucinogenic serpents. "God Graced by Bullets" sounds like the arrival of Kali and her attendant devotees. Klier skillfully hammers drum and bass patterns through a virulent wall of powerful energy while still weaving ambient atmospheres throughout these explosions of sound and beat. "Speach Will Be the Next Four-Letter Word" drifts and creaks like a malevolent machine which has lost most of its ability of locomotion, but none of its destructive intent.
Klier works surgically; his tracks aren't filled with too many extraneous movements, just swift, precise strikes. "Omnipotent Gray Area" is barely more than two minutes long, but it is a hurried shard of splintered time -- very jagged, very keen with its edges. It does what it needs to do and goes, leaving you staggering, leaving you unprepared for the martial march of "Rebels" which quickly drives over you and leaves you in the roadway. "To a Lull" grinds down into nothingness, a tread which slows to a fatal stop. You catch your breath -- this may be your last chance -- because the "Whores on the Cavity March" are coming and you can imagine that they aren't ones for taking prisoners.
My last exposure to Cordell's work was his work under the Monstrare moniker and a cold, bleak ambient release called Isfet. Irregular Dark Beat grinds home the fact that this lad has more than one hat in his closet. This hat has spikes and horns and blows scorching steam out a vent in the top. It's got ragged chain mail across the back and a cowl that is swept up like the thorned arm of a destroyer angel. It is, in short, a hat I wished I had. But, until I can figure out where to buy such a helm, I'll be satisfied with the powerful imagery supplied by Irregular Dark Beat.
Cordell Klier
Frozen Empire Media [2002]
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