Since the early 90’s the German electronic project Atrox has released a number of releases, amongst others on Steinklang Records. The music is usually somewhere in the region of power electronics or industrial noise. Think of Grey Wolves or Genocide Organ. “White Rooms” is one of the most recent Atrox albums on his own label Atacama Records, and sounds a bit more abstract than most of their other material.
Don’t expect rhythmic hits like ‘Versuch einer Versöhnung’, but experimental sound collages with strange noises. In general the music is still harsh and intense. The tracks are mostly instrumental, with some sparse distorted voices and speech samples. Apart from the industrial sounds, there are also plenty of ambient and techno influences on this album.
Heavier tracks like the rhythmic ‘Down’ and the noisy ‘Sermon of the Industry’ are alternated with more restrained pieces like the technoid, clear sounding ‘White Rooms Attack’ or the experimental dark ambient of “Coma”. My favourite is probably the epic last track ‘Sign of life’, a mixture of ambient and techno, with deep basses, strange bubbling sounds and a nice rhythmic framework. I had to think of some Clock DVA material here.
