MIXTURIZER
CDr
PRESS / REVIEWS
Reviewed on HEATHEN HARVEST
http://www.heathenharvest.com/
Nothing like a good collection of noise to get your blood flowing in the morning!! Prolific Spanish experimental musician and R.O.N.F Records co-owner, Manuel M. Cubas, unleashes his opus of ear-ripping, mind-melting, skin-brittling sound exercises on this CD-R compilation.
This work, entitled “mxtrzr” is a compilation of work he’s done over the course of this project’s 4-year existence, across his already very expansive discography. Mixturizer has yet to release a full CD-album, but you can definitely regard this compilation as a complete work. An introduction to the nerve-shredding psychosis that is Manuel’s specialty.
I’ve listened to quite a number of noise artists, perhaps have witnessed more live acts than have actually bought albums, but very few work so efficiently at getting under your skin the way this guy does. Even at low volumes, I’ve often walked away from this CD feeling more than a little light-headed. The textures and frequencies he uses work in such a way that you feel you are being peeled, layer by layer, rather than having sounds drilled into your head as with many of the Japanese artists. He will start off subtle, then use repetition while gradually becoming more and more course and discomforting, and just when you feel you’re becoming used to it, he will turn up the frequency, or do something else to push your mind to the snapping point. It’s actually quite ingenious.
The first song is a great example of this. It uses the medium of high-frequency crackles and whines over it’s length to numb, unnerve, and finally strip the mind of all resistence, before climbing right up into the highest frequencies before changing gears and descending into a clamor of low sounds and subtle amorphous textures resembling the sensation of hearing voices in the wind.
Each track uses a different medium of hypnotic sounds to work in different ways of turning the knobs of your mind the wrong way.
I was once introduced to the power of theta wave technology, and I wouldn’t doubt it if it was being employed here. The frequencies can be sheerly overwhelming at times. My cheap ass CDJ set tends to crap out any time I try to play this CD. Also, the transition between the tracks is definitely NOT subtle and occasionally startling during sudden changes as the previous track fades out.
The second track features escalating waves of oscillating spacey sounds, while the next track is a full-on blast of low-high frequency deafening static that comes on as a roar and leaves you with no escape, it slowly morphs into something resembling metallic explosions.
Track four contains some very simple ghostly organ sounds that rise, fall, and cut out in volume as the sounds suddenly switch from one pitch to another. There’s one track that features samples from underrated experimental music guru Maurizio Bianchi, which comes off as an enveloping clamor of all forms of metallic objects.
This CD would definitely appeal to all fans of noise, experimental, and even musique concrete, but is most definitely NOT for the timid. It’s also got a definite surreal side to it, and with it’s variety of different sound textures used, it will never bore the listener. Different sounds resemble different objects and shades of paint used in portraying a very vivid jarring landscape of color and texture. Beautiful, but in no way whatsoever tame or gentle.
A rewarding experience awaits those with an open mind and appetite for surrealistic sound. Perhaps I SHOULD tell you that if you’re new to noise, to start off with a tamer record, but the true noise music fan inside me honestly tells you no introduction would be better!!
Reviewed on CRUCIAL BLAST
http://www.crucialblast.net/
This solo project from Spanish noise demon Manuel Cubas is a purely digital effort compared to the guitar/drums/noise catastrophe that he creates with his grindnoise bands Potabilizadora and Genital Masticator, but the crushing harsh noise and bleak minimal dronescorch that he creates as Mixturizer is just as confrontational and abrasive as any of his other projects. mxtrzr is one his latest discs, nine tracks of tense static buzz, grinding blocks of blown out death-synth, sputtering distorted wall noise, and chopped-up clusters of creepy pipe organ tones that are orchestrated into towering symphonies of apocalyptic drone and electronic noise blast. Fast paced blasts of brutal choppy noise segue into minimal drill-tone drones, symphonies of malfunctioning sped up cassette tapes and primitive abstract electronica; there are also recurring rhythmic elements that lead the harsh noise into sections of pounding, jackhammer force, and even delves into some brutal gabber-like rhythmic pummel (as on "Desgarradora Realidad"). He's clearly influenced heavily by the fearsome black isolationism of Maurizio Bianchi's early work (and indeed one of the tracks that appears on this disc is a remix of Bianchi material called "Reconstructed"), but Cubas infests his oppressive blocks of noise with radioactive breath and tortured feedback, summoning alien melodies out of battered electronic equipment, unleashing maelstroms of sheet-metal/machine-shop chaos and carnivorous galactic locust swarms, and sculpts dark drones from slabs of carefully arranged noise arranged into distinct movements, which leads me to believe that the classic UK industrial sounds of the Broken Flag label probably inform these works as well. Harsh and menacing stuff, but with a dynamic and varied approach that leans more towards old school industrial noise than pure wall. The disc is a compilation of tracks taken from the previously released and ultra-limited "Internamente", "Actos Inhumanos", "Æternus Saturationis Innatus", and "Exploratio - Saturatio" Cdrs, as well as comp tracks, some previously unreleased material, and the Bianchi remix track "Reconstructed". Limited to 50 copies.
Reviewed on WONDERFUL WOODEN REASONS
http://wonderfulwoodenreasons.homestead.com/current.html
My only previous exposure to the music of Manuel Marrero Cubas' Mixturizer project was as part of a split release also on his R.O.N.F. label on which I described him as issuing forth a 'cretaceous fuzzy roar'. Well upon hearing a full length I stand by my words. Obviously there's more to it than just that but as a baseline description it holds quite a lot of water.
Noise is Manuel's passion. Harsh digital noise at that. This is anything but music for the faint of ears. The screaming, screeching, careening shards of grit that avalanche from each track are great fun. His noises are some of the sharpest edged that I've heard in a long time, in places piercing even. This is a wonderful change from the standard po-faced, guttural belch of much noise music as it seems to have the biggest, cheesiest shit-eating grin on it's face as it throws itself at you and slam dances on your eardrums.
Regular readers will now by now that with each passing month I'm becoming less and less interested in full-on noise assaults and most of the pieces that hit my player do so only the once. Now and again though I get one that reinstates my belief in noise as a vibrant genre. This is one of those times.
Reviewed on VITAL WEEKLY
http://www.vitalweekly.net/
I thought I had reviewed more than just a comp but then perhaps I'm not thinking.. Here the electronics go through slow processing and manipulations - slow enough to be predictable and almost precisely atypical of any conventional western music. Compare with Spruit where the chop up offers a different more open approach to the development of forms more akin to their digital genesis. There is a massive hour and 8 minutes here - some latter tracks of almost sheer harsh noise others play with rhythms devices and real feedback. The more "live" the pieces the better, the human as opposed to microsecond digital manipulations. This focuses on an important issue - to engage in change today the need is to rely on the hyperfast logic switching of cybernetics or else deny change in the move to HWN. To "hear" the foot moving the wah wah or hear the hand turning the filter / oscillator is to remove us back into a past which is dead and gone. So the last track is the most successful of the 9 apart from the needless fade into reverb. Still the old gods work - "The old habit, however, of associating a goal with every event and a guiding, creative God with the world, is so powerful that it requires an effort for a thinker not to fall into thinking of the very aimlessness of the world as intended. " (jliat)
