Late last year William Bennett, he of notorious and legendary(for its level of squall amongst other reasons) noise mongers WHITEHOUSE released a pair of recordings under the moniker of CUT HANDS. AFRO NOISE 1 and AFRO NOISE 2 are both pretty much what their titles state: sounds ranging from noise to ambient and filling all the gaps in between laid over polyrythmic beats made by various percussion instruments including some of African origin. CUT HANDS is an sometimes in your face, sometimes beautiful, but always groovy listen. It is the groove element, the rhythmic hook, that makes this potentially palatable for a much wider audience than anything that Bennett ever did with WHITEHOUSE. “Welcome to The Feast of Trumpets” is a less beat heavy track from AFRO NOISE 1. In two minutes this track creates a very uneasy atmosphere thick with foreboding. Droning synths low and high are interrupted only by various shards of tones that show up seemingly only to unsettle, all over a relentless war drum beat. “Stabbers Conspiracy”, also from AFRO NOISE 1, is 6 minutes of relentless give and take between the percussion, and an industrial clang which essentially acts as even more percussion, a runaway train heading for a cliff and not even noticing that it’s not on the rails anymore. CUT HANDS plays @ WWTAWWTAU at the end of February. That should be interesting.
