This one is a split tape between two very active artists. Tainted Corrosive Mist is a "drone'n'noise" -project that has released tens of releases already, and the sole artist behind the project also has a label (Puzzle Records, the label behind this tape) and five other projects to maintain. For more info on the artist, click here. Thermionic Tapes is a project which I don't really know much about, other than that it's a parallel project of KRV.
The Thermionic Tapes' track is mostly based on some sound samples of japanese people speaking, along with an occasional oriental porn sample. The samples are mostly short words or sentences (or moans), and are very echoed. They are teamed up with some thin and harsh feedback-like hissing, along with an occasional electro-part that vary from some soft and simple, even ambient-esque synth-parts to short moments of minimalistic free jazz-type expression. One might say that they sound like elevator music, but these sparse and soft parts nonetheless give the track a huge deal of it's atmosphere. Structure-wise the track continues the same way throughout the 30 minutes: the echoed speeches lead the way with their understandably edgeless sound, and the crude noisy hissing and the soft electro-ambience backs them up while giving the track it's personal sound.
The end result has a divided nature. The track is very calm and peaceful in a way, but has a very noticeable twisted and even perverse undercurrent, which reminds me of an album by M! that I reviewed earlier. Despite the uncomfortable feel the track might cause, it lacks in power and variation. As I mentioned, the track doesn't really have any high or low points; it just goes on with some change created by the occasional slight electronic back-up and the changes from regular speaking to echoed moans and such. The sounds have overall the same balance throughout the track's lenght, with the samples being on top, and it's too heavily based on mid-pitch sounds. The overall result is very "average" in a way, even though it is constructed from very unconventional and partly even noisy elements. It is it's undisturbed balance and harmony that keeps the track from really lifting off into the height of it's capabilities, and causes me to have very mixed feelings about the outcome. 7- / 10
The TCM-track is the softest piece of music I've heard from the project to date. It's mostly based on field recordings that have been edited and played through effect pedals, along with some tape loops to serve as sharper and slightly noisier sounds amidst the drone flow. The track starts with a loop of something that resembles a simple pattern of delayed and low bass guitar notes, with a clearer and thin, slightly synth-like mid-pitch sound creating a similar pattern. These two go forward with their loops, and create a good, solid and nicely vast soundscape with a slightly eerie feel. A changing and short tape loop appears every now and then in the back of the soundscape to add some variation to it, and to spice up it's repetitious nature. These loops are well chosen, as they sound distinctive with their thinner and occasionally noisier sound, but are so in-built to the soundscape that they don't bother it's flow; more on the contrary, they help it grow stronger. The soundscape reaches even dramatic heights every now and then.
Somewhere after ten minutes the track becomes a lot more minimal, relying on some rather quiet droning and other harsher sounds echoing in the distance. It takes a bit of time to adjust to the changed soundscape, but it's more varying nature that's more based on single sounds and their properties is a great listen as well, especially due to it's slowly rising layers of droning that give it some mass and cohesion. Towards it's end the track turns back into a dramatic and layer-based piece with a slightly amplified noisy side until the track's decent delay-ending. Unlike I thought at first, it's the mid-part that causes the track to suffer as a continuous experience; it halts the soundscape's as well as the individual sounds' progress, and turns the track into a very different direction than where it was going for in the beginning. It causes the song to lose it's direction, and when the song tries to get back to it's original goal in it's end, it doesn't manage to lift off because it has to build up to the same level that it was on before the minimalistic part. The end result is pretty disappointing, as the track would've had the capabilities and elements for a lot greater outcome. Nonetheless, it does present some pretty neat combinations of varying sound layers, and manages to reach strong atmospheres. If it had a clearer direction of progress and just slightly more powerful sounds, it could've been great. 7+ / 10
The split presents two highly promising songs and artists, but neither of them really manages to live up to the expectations that the songs cause the listener to have: two good experimentations that just lack in the overall purpose and means of their existence, and thus fall short from their goals and capabilities. It's a good buy for fans of twisted ambient and slightly noisy drones, but overall nothing too exceptional.