Perth’ Chris Cobilis has done – and still does – the band thing, playing in the Tigers, the Sabre Tooth Tigers, and Smrts. But he also does the noise/drone improv thing, releasing cassettes and other solo work since 1997. Limited to a 40-run CD-R, this EP is the second release on his own Disc Snap label. The first and most weighty track is “Quadruple Satan’, a consuming dozen-minute odyssey of what sounds like manipulated guitar drones. It’s constantly changing shape over that running time, from its initial blister and bluster to something quite melodic and ambient. Capable of shivering warmth and icy harshness, it ultimately dissipates without fanfare.
The next two tracks are set much further in the backdrop, the title of each a spin on the first. “Triple Satan’ is a slow, back-of-the-head rumble that starts to pick up steam after three minutes but then sputters like a dying motor. The longer “Quintuple Satan’ begins with distortion like extreme gusts of wind and then alternately recalls a storm of pins and needles and a thick torrent of static. It finds renewed ire towards the end before going for a sudden envelopment and abrupt halt.
A world away from those tracks, “Some Friend Sound’ finds Cobilis offhandedly twanging an acoustic guitar and breathing – even coughing – into a microphone. He mumbles and hums here and there, finally starting to sing very faintly after six minutes, but all of this seems intended more as a found-sound, tape-recorder-running experiment. There are rustles, bird sounds, and a glitch-y waver to the recording at times. It’s interesting enough, but it pales in comparison to what Cobilis achieves elsewhere, harnessing the fullness and malleability of drones like he was born for it.
Doug Wallen
