Thames VII

Includes hit ‘Stand Up for Power’
Pasalymany Tapes

Thames is the joint project of Blake Hargreaves (Cousins of Reggae, Dreamcatcher, etc.) and Alex Moskos (Unireverse, Et Sans, etc.) and this is actually the very very first time I heard the fruits of their collective labour (I missed out on that lucrative 5xCD-R they did awhile back, unfortunately). "Volume VII" seems to be a continuation of the damaged-synth/analogue/reel-to-reel/drum machine ethos I've heard they fritter around with on their other releases. Side one has hugely deformed mechanical belches and grooves, oft noisy but always lo-fi. Little machine gun supernovas work the lead on this track as it slowly locks into a kind of Einsturzende Neubauten/Throbbing Gristle-played-at-the-wrong-speed chug, aided and abetted by various hidden vocal stumbles. The B side is divided into a couple of tunes, the first one more of a rambunctious screamer, like a metal machine version of Cousins of Reggae. It's not too bad. The other song sounds like quite a bit of guitar noodling, more muffled voices and various clicks and scratches. It almost sounds like it's about to explode into something grandiose but instead just deviates back into the churning electro scrape that we heard way back on side one. It's none too bad but at 30ish minutes, maybe a bit too long.

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