textura online review of “The Black Room” by Dokuro

(2008- textura)
Dokuro, which unites electro-acoustic improvisers Agnes Szelag and The Norman Conquest, kicks up some serious feral dust in The Black Room. Though four of the EP’s five pieces are short, brief running times don’t prevent the pair from plunging into viral, feedback-infested pools where electronics and cello meld into feedback-drenched vortices. Much of the material is heavily-distorted: “The Ghost Goes West” sputters like some writhing machine set to implode; “Shadow of the Cat” drowns in an annihilating storm of feedback and rippling noise; and “Kuroneko” layers violent howls over an anchoring drum pattern. The cello makes its first recognizable appearance in the fourth song “Shikoku” which says something about how far the duo pushes its sound manipulations. The moment doesn’t last long, however, as the instrument quickly vanishes within a tribal storm of anguished yelps and throbbing rhythms. At nine minutes, the apocalyptic dirge “October Moon” allows Dokuro ample room to maneuver and stretch out. In this fully-realized set-piece, Szelag’s voice and distorted cello moan over a curdling tempo while shards of razor-sharp tones crawl across a wasteland of incinerated ruins. Like Lilienweiss’s, Dokuro’s sound may not be conventionally “pretty” but it’s undoubtedly powerful.