Walter Gross may not be a name many have heard of, member of Youth:Kill, this is the first solo release of the sample based collagist. Moved to L.A. only a year ago for a spot with K-The-I???, finished off the Youth:Kill album, and started work on this release.
The melting pot is huge, encompassing so many styles and genres its quite unfathomable, with influences from everywhere, Walter Gross comes across like a manic Caretaker smacked out on PCP. While I make comparisons to Caretaker, its for the sampling ethic, the anything goes attitude, the feed everything through a blender approach, but there is an aggressive edge to Walter Gross that dominates his sound, moments of beauty surely becoming consumed by distortion, noise and mayhem. In Walter’ own words, “I’m here buying 35 cent bin records, and 25 cent tapes and choppin’ the hell out of them, and playing everything out by hand, and I wanted to get that idea across through this record in a fun trance-inducing kinda wayâ€. Now my history as a music lover goes back to those days of tape cut-ups, Burroughs, Cabaret Voltaire, early industrial music concretes, so Walter’ approach excites me, the DIY ethic is not dead in a digital age, the methods of yesteryear still have a relevance today, because this stuff is brutal! It seems fluid, it seems to sound as if it could have been assembled in Pro-Tools, but there is a chaos here you cannot program.
Theres some crazy stuff here, beautifully constructed audio collage, givng way in the end to brutal beats and a thick blanket of distortion. Contains seven original tracks, plus an astounding remix by fellow distortion freak Tenshun, and will be released on CDR with intentionally cruddy yet sophisticated cover art, and the release of a cassette tape edition (tapes are coming back in you know…), further reinforcing the Walter Gross strong DIY ethic, letting the music speak for itself and keeping everything cheap and minimal. Check his myspace for further info and how to purchase a copy, www.myspace.com/waltergross. Crazy sound collage that will make your ears bleed, highly recommended.
Wayne Stronell
