KTL

KTL is the continuing collaboration between Stephen O’Malley (of Sunn O))) and Southern Lord fame) and Peter Rehberg, who is behind digital noise project Pita and the inimitable Austrian label Mego. These two juggernauts of white noise and black drone first came together as KTL to soundtrack a piece of French theatre by Gisele Vienne and novelist Dennis Cooper, and the sessions proved so fruitful that they ended up with at least two albums worth of material. 2 is closer to the lulling drones of Sunn 0))) than it is to the high-frequency digital noise of Pita, though those do filter in to devastating effect as well. Whereas 1 suffered from too many cooks in the kitchen, 2 sounds more refined, as if O’Malley and Rehberg had set aside their usual work methods and decided to make recordings that would transcend the sum of their parts. Both of these musicians have a signature sound and a core cult of fans, but on 1 they sounded as if they were holding back or, alternately, making as much noise fuckery as possible. Not so in this second instalment. Delivered over four tracks — the shortest is nearly 11 minutes, the longest over 27 —2 takes its time to build from dungeon-like doom toward mesmerising yet horrific conclusions. I can’t imagine the reactions of theatregoers to this material (my guess is more than a few clenched their teeth), but it’s safe to say that fans of O’Malley’s will rank this amongst his better outings of the last two years, and fans of Rehberg can listen to this one without earplugs.