Behold! The band whose name actually looks like an Input Error is being released on the London-based Input Error! How beautifully coincidental can the noise scene be? It might also be Welsh, but after a bit of googling, it turns out it has to be pronounced Size Affects (Cyess Afxzs – see?). Originally a duo from Rome with Stuart McCune on instruments and electronics and Maria Giuditta Santori on drums, but now officially a solo project by Stuart. Although this time it’s a duo again with Caesar Oetterli on drums. Cyess Afxzs has been active since 2021 and has releases on several labels that those into noise will recognise, including Satatuhatta, Rural Isolation Project, White Centipede Noise, Tribe Tapes, and now Input Error. And yet I had never heard of him /them.
“Was That Always There?” is not the longest CD I’ve ever heard, though also not the shortest. However, with 27 minutes, it’s the shortest of the batch I have to review. One track, on the backside of the digipack, described as ‘A continuous piece in three parts’, is King Hoopla, Alsace and King Jack. Style? Noise with drums and a strong improvisational feeling. Not jazz, because then I would have forwarded it to someone else to review. Alboth!, which I believe was also from Switzerland, was way more jazzy in its sound. However, the patterns from Caesar on drums or the use of instruments by Stuart suggest a deeper connection to ‘real’ music than, for example, the noise & drums combination by Peace & Love, which I reviewed in the past. This release is adorable in its own weird, noisy compositional complexity, yet it is noise. Just not as harsh as harsh noise.
My favourite parts of this release are the moments which I think belong to the “Alsace” part. They’re a bit more sound-oriented, and enough time and space are reserved for more complex sounds to develop on their own. Nothing too extreme, but it’s those moments of rest where I think the depth of the composition comes into full bloom.
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