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thesunlounge · 6 years

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Reviews 142: SK U KNO

As time progresses, Diego Herrera seems to disappear further and further into his own unique world of alien drone textures, otherworldly new age, and left-field post-club futurisms. This is especially true of his primary vehicle Suzanne Kraft, with each new release seeing him spread out into ever stranger and more adventurous sonic spaces. He has built up a diverse and incredible catalog of leftfield guitar romance, drifting post-rock, crystalline ambient, drugged up dub, freaky dancefloor fire, and hushed fusion (in large part on Melody as Truth) and now we get his strangest and most enigmatic trip yet with U KNO. Released on Rush Hour’s mysterious No ‘Label’ under the new SK U KNO moniker, this deep dive into Diego’s inner world is partitioned into four parts, with each longform section further subdivided into captivating and strange sonic experiments that fit together by some unknowable dream logic. The whole thing moves unexplainably through futuristic fourth world jungles, alien drone deserts, underwater dub clubs, guitar-led passages of flowing jazz nostalgia, and harsh expanses of cosmic noise, even taking a delirious detour into raved up ambient house near the conclusion. It’s Diego’s strongest journey yet and is a deeply weird and singular sonic experience unlike anything else out there.

SK U KNO - U KNO (No ‘Label’, 2018) Part one is subtitled “Gaze” and features space age atmospherics enclosing satellite transmissions and snippets of angels singing out from the void. Breathy vocalizations and hissing tones looping in reverse drift amorphously, while soft oscillations move high up in the sky. Gurgling guttural bass noises and fractal sound zaps undergo DMT time stretching and cut-up feminine voice narcotics move in and out of the bubbling layers of alien ambiance…”is it a dare”…”her eyes”…“her face, her neck, her breasts, her stomach.” The hushed drones and wavering dreamsynths continue to come in waves, like some otherworldly liquid glowing with dark shades of blue and purple that crashes against beaches of black stone. At some point everything falls away leaving a stretch of total silence, but Diego isn’t finished, as the anticipatory quiet is disturbed by new age sound crystals melting and reforming alongside whooshing spectral static and incandescent synthesizer cascades. And the feminine voices are still present, but only barely, just a snippet here and there of whispered human sensuality floating amidst clouds of rotating outerspace gas.

The second part, “Vast Mute,” crashes into carnivalesque rotations with extra-terrestrial organs and white hot cymbals blasted through interstellar fx. Idiophones are submerged in a sea of static, so that each smashing hit rings out with sparkling drops of noise. There is a feeling of CD skipping mesmerism as loops lock into hallucinatory cycles only to switch tempo or pitch unexpectedly and in the background, orchestrations flow drunkenly alongside repetitive insect drones and tape echo modulations. Throbbing bass currents sweep the track into a sort of haunted dub techno march taking place in an underwater futureworld, but the experience is brief as the mix devolves into metallic industrialisms and washed out aquatic oscillations, with vintage computer calculations, deep space transmissions, and trans-universal communications submerged within a watery dronescape. We then move into a passage seeing Berlin school sequences sent through a wormhole to the surface of some faraway star, the sounds now morphed and mutated into unrecognition, though they still possess a bouncing hypnotism. The mutant arps repeat for what seems like an infinite stretch and eventually time starts to morph, as if the universe is slowing down and simultaneously melting into atomic goo. Towards the end, mountainous bass movements deep within the earth underly the gleaming mutant electronics as they percolate through a cold and empty universe. And once the cosmic sequences break down into mist, all that’s left are hopeful synth chords flowing within a shadowy ocean of bass.

Though much of the recent work of Suzanne Kraft has been dominated by the guitar, the instrument doesn’t make an overt appearance until “Part Three: To Make a Stone Weep.” Swelling clouds of guitar warmth background Diego’s post-jazz fingerpicked futurisms…like Stephan Basho-Junghans traveling the fourth world. There is so much space in the mix, as deep and wondrous guitar resonance rings out, the vibe peaceful and meditative yet never quite going where you’d expect, especially as flashing psychedelic fx are sprinkled throughout the mix. And at times the playing wanders its way into a fried sort of American primitivism, like the kind of guitar abstractions that might appear on a later Fahey record. The strangely glowing guitar webs are soon joined by bass-heavy pile drivers and malfunctioning cyborg conversations, as well as the kind of otherworldly and deeply disturbing noises you might hear in the Black Lodge of Twin Peaks (or even worse, the building above the purple sea from The Return). It’s a captivating and unsettling contrast given that the guitar continues to wander through beautiful deserts exploding with sunlight and reflective color. But once the guitar disappears, it leaves nothing but the horrifying noise textures digging into the soul with malicious intent and repeating so long as to subsume all of existence.

In “Part Four: Accelerate Me Wildly”, the preceding chaotic noise textures are washed away by dreamy layers of new age synthesis that coalesce into a shimmering fog of silver. Wailing guitars drop evocative solos of sky-seeking transcendence and smothering sub-kick vibrations enter to give everything an off-kilter rhythm. The purifying layers of rainbow light are disturbed periodically by crackling alien bass fx, gurgling oscillations, and insectoid communications while harmonium drones from faraway worlds enter and then fade into the air, leaving bass heavy delay oscillations that slowly evaporate. We then move into a section where zooming sound blasts rush across the stereo field…like some sort of sonic superhero moving at unbelievable speeds through a starry expanse of cosmic bubbles. At some point, crushing jackhammer fx emerge, their effect so extreme as to completely disrupt the meditative wonderland of revolving space noise and then seemingly out of nowhere, huge washes of distorted guitar enter alongside nostalgic skateboarding samples. There are these brilliant transitions where the sounds of a skater landing are deliriously and skillfully replaced with transportive blasts of universal bass harmony…these big euphoric walls of sonic power. And best of all, breaky drums eventually fade in with double-time hats vibing out alongside wooden accents and chest-caving kick drums. All the while, synths rain down cosmic ecstasy as we find ourselves in a dreamworld of old skool house ambiance.

(images from my personal copy)

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