‘Nowhere campfire tapes’ is a title that immediately struck me with its promise of obscureness. I never heard from the project Punck before, but that might well be because this is their full- length debut. They’ve only released some cdr’s before.
Punck is no standard dark-ambient in the vein of Cold Meat Industry artists, and not even close to more regular ambient acts like Vidna Obmana or Steve Roach. It is electronic laptop minimalism with a very mysterious, trance-like feeling, mainly evoked by the razorsharp, high-pitched drones and haunting field recordings. The project is very similar to two acts I reviewed before: Freiband and Birchville Cat Motel. The reason why I was negative about Birchville Cat Motel, is exactly the same reason why I’m very positive about ‘Nowhere Campfire Tapes’: this artist knows how to create atmosphere, knows when to use the field recordings and knows how to use it in a beautiful structured way.
The field recordings are complementing the music (not overruling it) resulting in a nice contrast between abstract sounds and concrete echo’s from nature. Interesting is the usage of (Italian) spoken word samples in ‘Adriatico Lisergico’ and ‘ Tsunami Notes’. Again warping the listener from a more abstract dimension in a more concrete one.
There are no discrepancies between the tracks. Sounds return and evolve around each other, swelling and slowly disappearing in a perfect fusion. Rhythm and melody are almost absent, but that is no problem whatsoever, since the whole release sounds so maturely developed, so greatly structured. It has no need for concrete song-structures as melody or rhythm.
The production is sublime. All sounds are crystal clear. I cannot wipe the smile from my face as I am reviewing this record. I’m already looking forward to listening to this record once more.
