Dead God’s Homecoming

Unusual and exciting item is Un Dictionnaire De Déesses (FIBRR RECORDS fibrr 024), a thrilling sprawl of free-rock noise with added vocal rants, all creating a deliciously nauseating churn of sound…credited to three performers, the reciter Rhys Trimble and two groups, Wolframite and Anti-Rock Missile Ensemble (or ARME as they appear on the cover).

I see Jenny Pickett and Julien Ottavi are here, label managers and both fine noisers and experimental sound-art politico agitational types, sometimes exploring new technology and subverting the internet, but here on these Nantes sessions recorded in 2022, they’re blasting out some fine boulders on bass and guitar, joined by Benjamin Bourdel, Jean Grimault, Francesco Petteta, Philippe Simon, Anthony Taillard and Gabriel Vogel in an unholy old-fashioned assault in the Hemingway bullfighter style. Two drummers…for one thing it’s great to savour a dose of thumping and battering in the remorseless Hawkwind mode, instead of all these droning-guitar types who want to emulate Sunn O))).

Rhys Trimble is the secret weapon on this album, though. I find he’s an avant-garde Welsh poet (and educator, and visual artist, and all-round good guy outsider) who grew up in Pontypool after being born in Zambia, has a first degree in biochemistry and been published in academic journals of poetry writing, and has concentrated on writing and reciting his poems, be they in Welsh or English tongue (he himself is fluent in both languages). Those intrigued (including me) to learn more might want to seek out his work with Lolfa Binc, an improvising punk noise band. Plus he has an automated word-scrambling program on his website (every writer their own Burroughs) and his Wikipedia photo depicts a bearded, unkempt wild-man with a wooden stave. Trimble isn’t detectable on every second of this record, and both Ottavi and Bourdel are also adding their very distinct vocal contributions (sometimes aided by loops and echo), but when our Welsh genius opes his lips and roars, he comes within an ace of reincarnating the spirit of a pagan druid, and you’d need extendable dog tongs such as those used in St Beuno’s Church Clynnog Fawr to evict this barking maniac from the pulpit.

Fans of the very extreme end of the Mark E. Smith / Fall catalogue will want to check this out instantly. In fine, an irresistible mix of unhinged sounds and dementia in fine tornado form. Co-presented by AP0-33 and Le Filtre À Sons. From 19 June 2023.