AANIPAA- Through A Pre-Memory (2013)

AANIPAA- Through A Pre-Memory (2013)

I’m a confessed Mika Vainio fan since his days with the thunderously loud Pan Sonic, I really love everything Stephen O Malley has recorded, he is a true innovator and a man who has confessed his admiration for Romanian composer Iancu Dumitrescu, another favorite of mine, and if that wasn’t enough I`m a big fan of Alan Dubin witch like screams since he was in OLD with James Plotkin, so, you bet AANIPAA is the kind of project I really love to hear about, AANIPAA is the result of the powerful compositional team of Vainio and O Malley, they both composed this pieces with Vainio on electronics and O Malley on guitars, in the way Alan Dubin got the chance to add vocals and everything started to jell together, opener Muse is a darker than dark recording, it mixes with perfect timing Mika`s well know powerful pounding beats and icy electronics with O Malley obscure chiming guitars, slowly, Dubin vocals start to be heard and that when the horrifying atmospheres created in this record really start to embrace us and we really start to feel lost, Dubin is such an amazing screamer, he sounded amazing with OLD, he sounded amazing with Khanate and here, he does more of the same, always finding ways to give us goose bumps and to send chills down our spine, obviously this time he is insuperable company, as Mika sets those minimalistic beats that sound more like the last heartbeats of a dying man, the scratching of nails against a wall, and metals corroding in hell, Mika is a master of tension, he knows how to keep our attention, no matter how abstract his atmospheres are, he is the master of really hardcore ambient, of gelid techno, he is the man who can freeze your heart with sound, and again, if that wasn’t enough check those mammoth guitars riffs of Mr O Malley and you ought to be utterly destroyed at this point, this three really know how to freeze hell all over.

Toward All Thresholds is another electrifying composition, one, again started mainly by Vainio and his icy metals clashing and grinding, while powerful tectonic movements start to shake the earth under our feet, Vainio show us again why he is a master of isolationism, a distant heir of ambient music, one that is so cold and desolate with powerful draining atmospheres and dark spaces in between, at a middle point, O Malley starts adding guitar, but Mika`s beat intervene in a powerful crushing way, putting tons of tension in the mix, Mika sets the tune into full motion and our soul is shaken inside, adrenaline fills de ambient as master Vianio rode his immense war tank to victory, while O Malley listens closely and starts adding feedback and slow grinding riffs, leaving us right into the void, into the nothing into a cold as ice black hole.

Noise infects and corrodes Mirror of Mirror Dreams, here without a doubt Vainio and O Malley let their wildest dreams run free, they create white hot noise and obviously dare to provoke anger on the listener, then again, space reigns supreme and Vainio`s ultra-low frequencies are set free, this is the realm of electronic dissonance, of electricity gone very, very wrong, creating a horrid forest of dark crystals in which we feel completely lost.

This incredible record ends up with Watch over Stillness/ Matters Principle, in which Dubin is once again brought into the mix, the formula remains supreme as Vainio set his monster beats free to roam and pulverize whatever get into their way, while O Malley roars in his guitars, and Dubin once again steals the show using Anna Akhmatova, the great Russian poet whose son was sent to a gulag in order to stop her from writing in the middle of Stalin tyranny, so you bet Dubin is really reciting powerful words full of sorrow, and he knows how to reflect that sorrow in a horrifying way.

We know Vainio is serious as hell when it comes to recording music, he has rarely made a record that lacks significance or transcendental power, and the fact that this time he is timing with O Malley is just something that you can’t miss if you like really extreme experimental music, a delightful display of extremely dark cerebral power form three masters of it.