Artist: Hecate vs Lustmord
Title: Law of the Battle of Conquest
Label: Hymen
Catalog#: ¥726
Format: remix CD
Country: Germany
Released: 1991
Genre: Dark Ambient, Breakcore
Style: struggle of chaos vs. controlled atmospheres, hellish breakbeats vs. dark drones
Bitrate : mp3@320Kbs (Lame 3.97)
Size: 43 MB
go od vs. evil, dark vs. light, anima vs. animus,
only on rare occasions do such opposites converge to create an enduring state of struggle. of course
hymen does not postulate that hecate vs. lustmord's confrontational sonic assault, law of the battle of
conquest is so pure a pairing of opposites — but it's damned close, where the struggle of chaos vs.
controlled atmospheres, of hellish breakbeats vs. dark drones takes the form of four riveting tracks.
rachael kozak pushes the aggressive, the combative, the raw power of percussive sound in her recordings
as hecate, stressing the dominance of breakbeat as found in the work of elder industrial artists like skinny
puppy as well as contemporary noise fury like venetian snares. brian williams, on the other hand, has a
history running into the 80s of voicing subtler emotions like isolation, angst, and dysphoria as ambience,
working as a sound designer for graeme revell as well as releasing genre-defining dark ambient albums
under the lustmord name.
it's from four lustmord albums in particular that the tracks on law of the battle of conquest arise. in fact, the
ferocity of hecate's rhythmic prowess conjures a new whole by alchemizing an entire lustmord album in
each track.
'brian's work is usually sparse, while mine is just the opposite,' explains kozak. 'i used his original source
material to create the opulent backing tracks and then layered beats and bass, a specialty of mine.'
as such, lustmord's the monstrous soul from 1992 spawns hecate's 'monstrosity,' shredding the brooding
minimal overtones of the original with horrific walls of rolling bass and apocalyptic breaks to accentuate a
frantic tempo. a similarly toned 'strong attractron' (from 1996's strange attractor/black star 12-inch)
together with 'monstrosity' bookends 'megavoid' and 'heresy resurrected' — where aphex-aceed drum
patterns over 2001's metavoid impart martial visions of the future, while hecate invokes hades' noise from
1990's heresy through human and werewolf screams from graeme revell.
'i tried to make a track represent the original feeling of what brian had in mind,' says kozak.
'i think she reinterpreted it in a very unique way, and i admire what she did with it,' replies brian, noting that
because they initiated their friendship on that fateful morning in september 2001, the project took on a
personal significance for both of them. 'she decoded the old and infused new sounds and a new spirit,
blending both into something that is true to the original while pushing it into new areas. she made the old
fresh and relevant in a new/different world.'
'over the years there have been opportunities to have my material remixed, but i couldn't really see the
point,' continues brian. 'but rachael is fresh and full of energy, and i feel a real empathy for where she's
coming from sonically, so i knew the results would be interesting...' (official hymen press release)
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