Beach Sloth

Decimus – 11 7.8

               Decimus’s ‘11’ is unbelievably dark. This is obscene in terms of its utter doom. None of it makes any sense. What’s remarkable is the man behind this music is better known for his work in the No Neck Blues Band. Sonically it is completely unpredictable. Everything is in a constant state of flux. Heaven forbid anything stays put. Say ‘Heaven’ for this is a hellish record, dark, almost evil in its many manipulated sounds and indecipherable utterances. 

                Side A swirls around nothing in particular. This music is coreless. Repetition plays a part but only for so long. Forget concepts of rhythms or evolution. Emotions and moods help bind together the many strange sounds. Hypnogogic can partly explain some of these utterances. For the rest it is generally unclassifiable. The hypnogogic aspects come across in the recognizable old sounds, the doomed distorted horns, the beats used for effect than actual rhythm. Side B reminds me of extremely obscure Freiband and its work with original source material. Like Freiband, Decimus takes apart original pieces through the power of distortion, destruction, and indifference. This is twisted into completely unrecognizable pieces. For me halfway into the second piece is my favorite part of the whole album. Ghostly radio seems to appear out of all the debris giving it the illusion of transmissions trying and failing to reach out. 

                This is engrossing. Upon multiple listens the pieces seem to grow. So much is going on that one or two will not suffice. Very little I can think of reminds me of this particular method. Decimus remains unique in its bleak vision.