No Favours - Brutal Century (2021)

No Favours is the duo of Michael Donnelly and Ben Page (Rothko, Rocketnumbernine). After spending six days in Hamburg with a few synths and microphones back in 2019. What emerges is ‘Brutal Century’ a paen to Chingford, Essex, digested and refluxed into their dystopic vision.

‘Gnat Trap’ opens with a glacial gamelan, detuned and barely played, hovering near static. Call to prayer appears like a wraithed radio signal amongst a soundfield of insectoid chatter and infected croaking. Piano hits point the way forward as a near melody gathers in place. Funereal exotica. Track two, ‘Brutal Century’ is a tape warping ambience, looping wooden percussions encrusted and fingernails dirty.

‘Limbo Nears End’ recalls the off-balance kinetics of KETEV, a drunken riddim amongst an organic mat of amphibious cross talk and groping bassline. It’s eerie heaviness off set by it’s car boot sale orchestration. ‘I Don’t Know How To Close My Eyes’ presents a glinting hope with deeply wow’d synths stretched upwards away from a grinding maw of a bassline and cavernous rim shot. Pouring along like a cobwebbed, horse and plough Pan Sonic. Closing track ‘Young Men Breathing’ ends on a softer more ethereal note. Shoes are almost completely gazed into gaseous states with pitched vocals orbiting the dense centre. The smell of underlay is strong, rubber toxicity at the back of the shop of our brutal century.