Last year, CONTROL played a festival in Austria, coinciding with the fantastic self-released CD “This Death”. That was eleven months ago, and well, not even one year later, there is yet another CONTROL album to review! The reason this time to release it? Another live activity from CONTROL in Europe is the ‘Dominion Of Flesh’ festival in Stockholm., celebrating ten years of Cloister Recordings on two locations with live performances of Lust Fist, XAL, Ochu, Survival Unit, Trerikröset, Beckahesten, African Imperial Wizard, Ex.Order, Trepaneringsritualen, Lille Roger, Blitzkrieg Baby, CONTROL, Inade, Alfarmania + Proiekt Hat and finally Anenzephalia. Yes, I was there, but where were you?
The show Thomas Garrison put up in Stockholm was obliterating. This guy is coming on stage, and he’s not that tall. Sorry, Thomas, but I’m at least a head taller than you are. Dressed in black, ears pierced and stretched, he looks into the audience while slowly building up his sounds… Oh my God, those sounds… Rumbling big fat analogue pulses and drones out of this world. They’re covering all the frequencies of the audible spectrum, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he secretly snuck in some stuff you can’t hear but can only feel. This man is a master! So much energy, aggression, and unedited emotion are pushed out of his modular … And then when the music has gotten to the point where it should be, vocals get added. The emotion and power, the combination of what this man is capable of, makes you feel so small. Suddenly, you fully understand why CONTROL is written in all capitals. Always. There are no small letters; they have a reason to be capitalized.
At the show in Stockholm, Thomas played a lot of this new material. I can’t tell you exactly which tracks, and there were probably also some tracks played from the previous one. What I can tell you is that “Surveillance Theory” is an album you will not play just once. On the inside, a quote by Michael Foucault is written: ‘Surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action.’
So much is happening in the sound design of this CD and, well, those haunting vocals. As well as the concept behind it. It’s proper stuff to give you nightmares. For a reason. Sleep tight. A+
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