Sickening digital rainbows reviewed by Ed Pinsent

We heard harsh-noise computer pervo-maniac Venta Protesix in 2014 with his Anni Di Masturbazione album, which found a home on the UK label Adaadat with its grotesquely irritating racket themed on masturbation, sexual violence, and other anti-social topics…he’s here today with Sickening Digital Rainbows (URB037), this time appearing on Urbsounds, our favourite Slovakian label for contemporary beats and underground electronica. Venta Protesix – who may be Italian Itaro Belladonna from Salerno – continues to remain faithful to his “isolationist” stance, by which we mean he stands apart from all other forms of harsh digital noise and ploughs his own furrow, using his laptop as an extension of all his other organs (if you get my drift). This is meant by way of clarification in case you thought “isolationist” refers to that 1990s school of ambient music associated with Kevin Martin’s famed compilation for Virgin. He also dives freely into the worlds of internet porn and solitary self-gratification, every other title on the album referring directly to this questionable sport – ‘Futuristic Computer Sex’ being the most obvious one (and the most banal; not even J G Ballard would have stooped so low).

Sickening digital rainbows …and let the vomit flow!

Even without these trappings, Venta’s noise remains obnoxious and repellent, mainly due to the high trebley tones, the limited aural range; half the time it just sounds like a 1980s computer game going mad, which is probably the general idea. He also spews out each nonsensical madcap spree with virtually zero concern for composition, unless you count devices stuck on repeat play, endless inane looping, and nauseating digital tones sprayed everywhere like so much scattered ejaculate. “His one true goal,” the label blurb informs us, “is to design sounds with the specific, single-minded purpose of generating physical distress in his listeners.” In spite of all this, I’m still finding today’s spin great fun, a candy-coloured roller coaster ride through empty, vacuous non-music…one bonus might be the fact that he evidently doesn’t expect to be taken “seriously”, like say Merzbow or Zbigniew Karkowski or even Mattin, and his day-glo doodling can be enjoyed on a very superficial level without any of the trappings of “art”. Maybe I’m getting used to this stuff these days…or perhaps I need to play it louder. I think this came out in October 2017 but we got our copy on 27 February 2018. I mention this because the CD seems to be sold out already. No matter, stream it on Bandcamp…and let the vomit flow!

Sickening digital rainbows reviewed by Ed Pinsent/The Sound Projector

http://www.thesoundprojector.com/2018/10/27/sex-math-equation/

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