Israeli eight-piece noise ensemble Lietterschpich certainly don’t do things by halves. If the deliberately confrontational title of this debut album, jointly released on Topheth Prophet and Heart and Crossbones doesn’t already give good indication of that, the fact that the band’s name translates literally from Hebrew into “litre of ejaculate’ should. Lietterschpich first formed back in 2004, with the eight member lineup being comprised of former veterans of the Israeli post-punk, industrial and electronic scenes. Although they previously released a single 3-inch black CDR titled Quasi during 2005, the emergence of this sole piece of recorded output was swiftly followed by the band going on hiatus for a year. I Cum Blood…represents the group’ re-emergence after this extended break, though inspection of the liner notes soon reveals that the tracks here were actually recorded prior to the hiatus, including at two live shows in Belfast and Tel Aviv.
The focus here falls predominantly upon shearing power-electronics and death-industrial textures; the fact that one of the members mans a no-input mixer hinting at the sort of close kinship here with the blazing sheets of overdriven noise fashioned by the likes of Whitehouse and Merzbow. While opening track “Stockfish!!’ (note the band’ rampant exclamation mark fetish) immediately reveals the guiding influence of Throbbing Gristle as Zaz Ben Doom’s unhinged vocals cackle P-Orridge-like against squealing bursts of noise and relentless factory-line rhythms, the narcotically slowed-down “Mud And Fun’ shows doomy Techno Animal-flavoured industrial dub entering the equation alongside crashing live drums. Between Doom’s gargling vocal roars and the relentlessly oppressive noise textures built from layers of feedback, samples and tape loops, a unrelenting oppressive atmosphere is rapidly generated that’s frequently rendered all the more impenetrable by Doom’s unintelligible delivery. While frequent moments of unexpectedly psychedelic beauty still lurk amidst the carnage – witness the gentle fashion in which drummer D. Opp strikes his cymbals in time with Doom’s reverbed howls on the title track, at 58 minutes in length a sense of repetition and directionlessness invariably creeps in at points.
Chris Downton
