:GARISTA:

Zoviet France (stylized as :$oviet:France: for this release) is a long running Industrial/Ambient group from England, various members have come and gone, the one constant being Ben Ponton. On :Garista: $F are Ben Ponton, Peter Jensen, and Robin Storey (who would later leave $F and carry on solo as Rapoon). We find our merry trio in full out hobgoblin mode for this release; no structured music here, no notion of normalcy, everything is indeterminant. Not content with just sounding like drunken heathens, this aesthete and esotericism extends even to the packaging of their releases. The original cassette release is a hand cut cloth J-card slathered in petrol or creosote. If you'd come across this while out for a walk in the woods you'd think the orcs from LOTR were about, doubly if you chose to listen to it.

The first side features a handful of short excursions, though really making distinctions is pointless I will still attempt some guidance, starting with Scrama Mdags (as far as I'm aware this and all the other song and album names don't mean anything to humans). Odd synthetic, bouncing rubber band-like electronics rollick along to scratchy, tape mucked, background howling; abruptly we cut into Mosbas, a completely unstructured mess of random sounds. Something that sounds like an effects ladened horn whispers and blares away, odd echoed banging sounds, a cheap organ blurts randomly in the background; it's all kept fairly sparse, allowing for lots of space. Vocals eventually butt in, groaning and moaning under some tape effects, sounding pitch shifted. At some point we've rolled into Mama Piss (okay I guess one song title does mean something to humans), vocals sounding like someone washing their mouth, gurgling some water. More voices join in, laughing and making random EEHHHH, AHHH, WAAHHOO and OOHHH sounds, going on far longer than I want to listen. If there was any question of how serious this group was at this point you've had that answered now.

We get our first semblance of articulate music, hobgoblins can evolve. A dirty, thunky, rubbery bass line barges in, syncing up with the treated vocals, while the rest continue to hoop and holler. We enter Nruknesh, even more unhinged treated vocal performances accompanied by bottomed out, bass heavy droning and thumping. Sounds like some tribal ritual performed next an industrial refrigerator or air conditioning unit. Caarcuraz continues the un- normalcy with some viscous, swirled electronics and voice, chanting incessantly along eeeEHHHHeeeeeEEHHHH. Layers of uncanny, deep chanting and chittery-chattery voices and chirping, cracked electronics are thrown into this tape degradation party.

The two longer 'songs' are quarantined on side two, starting with M1 M1 M1, this has no exits unlike the motorway, buckle up asshole. We're back to Mosbas, drawn out soundscaping with random bangs, treated vocal ululations, horn and organ (if that's what they are, idk I'm guessing folks). Tape hiss so loud it qualifies as a fourth participant. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the same session chopped into separate parcels. This meanders on with no conclusion or goal in sight, at some point the sound drops out WHO KNOCKED OVER THE FOUR TRACK GODDAMNIT. Of course we continue on in a couple seconds unabated. The lack of progression serves towards making it sound like you're living in fairytale fantasyland, living in a mud hut clutching your sheepskin blanket while listening to a neighboring village being pillaged and razed by a band of trolls and goblins. While the gloam settles, you hope they don't fancy a long night of destruction. Eventually the track simply ends. We enter the final stretch with the longest offering Rangmabasm. Similar to Mosbas and M1 M1 M1 this session makes use of silence and space, even more so than the two aforementioned, making for an even more spaced out and nebulous listen, and plenty of silently, snakey hissing tape. Reverbed clangs of all manner of pots, pans, sticks, stones, buckets, buckets of kitchen utensils, trashcans; rubbery, stretchy electronics whump, warp, and warble heavily and loudly; forlorn callings of horns and inhuman wails from out of the tape hiss abyss. Occasionally an industrial rhythm of trashcan beating and synthetic humming will form, bottoming out in noisy cacophony before disseminating. Eventually we do settle and morph into some tribal, ritualistic groove of synth and various percussion. A dance around the firelight. It gathers and ends toward an upsurge into the abyss, I presume whatever universe this was recorded in apocalyptically ended. There is light however, we did get our first sign of human intelligence in the form of articulate words, 'he's bobogarista'! That's only one articulate word actually, but a phrase to live by nonetheless, 'he's bobogarista' cause aren't we all?

In conclusion this is perfect for whatever next church function you're attending that needs some music.

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