Porter Ricks/Techno Animal - Symbiotics
There are two ways to hear echoes underwater at ten kilometers down. The first requires a titanium-plated bathysphere and a research vessel capable of anchoring itself over the Marianas Trench and lowering your listening station down to into that vast slit in the earth. Not to mention the exorbitant cost of the gear that will allow you to be able to record the sluggish sound waves which percolate through that infinite darkness at the bottom of the sea. I mean, if you've got the time and capital, by all means, go right ahead and launch this expedition. But, if you are a little short on either, there is always option two: pick up the Porter Ricks and Techno Animal collaboration called Symbiotics.
Coming from two ends of the European dub resurgence of the last decade, Porter Ricks and Techno Animal have injected the traditional dub sound with a manic, bio-mechanical virus. Porter Ricks (the long echo duo of Andy Mellwig and Thomas Koner) had put out a number of 12" at this point, helping to cement the Basic Channel sound which would open the gates for an entire generation of German laptop junkies to reconstruct echoes around static and silence; whereas the approach of Techno Animal (the sonic ricochet between Kevin Martin and Justin Broadrick) was more medical and mechanical -- breaking apart the dub with clinical precision in order to discover just where the echo lay. Symbiotics was meant to be a true collaborative effort, but what came to be was a sharing of source material. Porter Ricks provided elongated instances of time to Techno Animal, and the Animal in return gave Ricks a handful of their sterilized sound waves. The symbiosis of the title is the resultant soundscapes which sound like both and neither -- the evolutionary next generation of sound to which you have no defenses.
It is deep, dark, watery dub, beats and soundscapes that capture the movement of large masses of water under extreme pressure. "Polytoxic 1" and "Polytoxic 2" are Porter Ricks treatments -- full of the deep richness of the black water, propelled by the insistent hiss of static signals. These treatments will destroy an oscilloscope with the writhing motion of their heavy tread. Alternating between these two are the Techno Animal creations of "Hydrozoid" and "Bio-Morphium," fiercer creatures who find your tiny bathysphere a delectable treat, and the constant pounding you hear are the creatures' vast skulls slamming again and again into the side of your metal tomb. The equipment in your vessels shrieks and sparks and cowers in fear.
After the opening assault and tramua of the descent, Porter Ricks returns with "Phosphoric," the first soundtrack delivered directly from the bottom of the trench -- the initial recordings of what you will hear after your small, banged-up craft has landed in the mud. It is nine minutes of complete vastness, dark open spaces filled with the sound of water breathing and venting. The heavy fluid around you gurgles and chatters and rumbles. You certainly can't see anything at these depths; all you can do is listen, and what you hear is the sound of monsters moving through the ink.
I wonder what kind of world flourishes flourishes ten kilometers underwater, and I know that I, small sight-dependent mammal that I am, will be utterly lost in that darkness. I will have to evolve and learn to listen. It really is a matter of symbiosis. Porter Ricks and Techno Animal will teach you; they will teach you how to survive at these depths, how to hear the life which thrives in these dark waters.
Techno Animal
Force Inc [1999]
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