More insufferable process-noise by lovable UK japester Hari Hardman; his Pick Stars Change Hands (HARI HARDMAN PRODUKTS HH026) comprises six bursts of jagged, electronic drone where often the frequencies are inhumanly loud and nasty. Yet the listener sticks around for more, hoping for some payoff as a reward for enduring these shrill tones, these obnoxious blasts, and unvarying textures with little modulation in timbre or pitch. You may not get this payoff, and remain stranded with a sense of eternal frustration, which as ever may be part of Hari’s plan. He exhibits the same nonchalance when it comes to titling his individual tracks, although the well-educated reader might be able to form some connection between ‘Fluid’, ‘AMINO’, ‘O33-””’ , ‘OXYJENE’ and ‘Iffga’4’ that I am missing; perhaps a physics student who knows something about natural gases or biological compounds can explain. For the most part, the music takes into the stratosphere of grisly noise, or sends us careering bodily down the iron tunnel of pain, into a swimming pool full of acids. This release includes an 11-minute epic whose title is a string of nonsense numbers and characters you could use as a password, if you can only remember it; the music itself is a complete endurance test, gradually increasing the agony as it creeps towards the ending. The photocopy collage insert this time features sportsmen and women from press photographs, the images slightly doctored to emphasise the futility and absurdity of their actions (and, by extension, of all human endeavour). From 18 July 2013.
