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Gulaggh: Vorkuta

31/08/10 || Khlysty

I never though that this would happen, but DUE TO MASSIVE PUBLIC DEMAND I feel obliged to review Gulaggh’s newest venture into sonic mayhem and unmusicality. For those not in the know, Gulaggh is the new configuration of the black metal/noise collective from Netherlands that in the past hid themselves under the moniker Stalaggh and issued a number of nigh-unlistenable recordings of –supposedly- insane people going berserk, while the band added, after the fact, industro-noise, scratching, feedback and all kinds of other shit, to create musique concrete, seemingly only for hell’s denizens (here’s the review I wrote for Stalaggh’s “Projekt Misanthropia”).

Anyway, seems that Stalaggh failed to achieve their desired goal –that is, global holocaust, which is what the “gh” at the end of the band’s name stands for-, so they decided that a name-change and a mental transportation to more arctic climates might be useful. Thus, they decided to rename themselves Gulaggh (referencing the infamous Soviet-regime penal labour camps, where millions of people were pogrom’d, especially during the Stalin reign of terror) and to name their first outing under the new moniker “Vorkuta”, which was one of the most notorious gulags. Supposedly, they will make two more recordings, “Kolyma” and “Norilsk”, named after Vorkuta’s little brothers of human degradation.

So far, I’ve given you quite a bit of info concerning the band, but I haven’t said word one about how “Vorkuta” sounds like. Well, it sounds like Hell. The recording is 45 minutes long and for the first 24 minutes, what we get is a static-slathered speech in Russian (where probably a Commissar explains to the dissidents in the gulags what’s in store for them, or where some Russian tells a sexy story about a goat, I don’t know which, I don’t speak Russian…), followed by noise, scratchy violins, violas or something like that and some totally unmelodious sax, plus more subdued white noise and some screams.

But at the 24-minute-mark all hell breaks loose, with a cacophony of children screaming, crying and wailing, some percussion and other, obviously adult screams, howls and shouts of the unintelligible kind. This shit goes on for what seems like an eternity, with furtive noises (i.e., violins, sax, etc) entering and leaving the cacophony, seemingly at random. To tell you the truth, in the beginning of this particular part of the recording I was jarred and a bit scared by the terrible noise and the seemingly real despair of the screaming. After a while, though, I got used to the whole miserable ambiance and I almost started enjoying the bastard, or at least, not hating it.

I don’t know how the band came across the children’s screams and I don’t wanna find out. Overall, though, “Vorkuta” is a better outing than Stalaggh’s sonic installations. It seems more organic, less treated, more real and, in a sense, more harrowing an experience than those that preceded it. Of course, this has nothing to do with metal in general and black metal in particular; this is purely noise, without any discernible musical form to help the listener. It’s harsh, it’s unforgiving and it’s extremely user-unfriendly. It’s not something that I would ever dare to suggest seriously to anyone to listen to, but I will say this: if you ever want to listen to a noise record, “Vorkuta” might not be the worst starting place.

6,5

Information
Released: 2009
Label: Self-released
Website: Gulaggh MySpace (fan page)
Band
No definitive evidence about the members’ identities

Tracklist
01. Vorkuta

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