La Mort - Part Two

Continuing the same “what the fuck” trajectory as he started on way back in 2004, Johann Aegidius Ritter made a rather sensible decision by Alpha Drone standards in following up ‘La Mort’ - one of his most powerful ideas thus far - with an EP of La Mort - Part Two. Of course, in typical style, the second round is quite different to the first and doesn’t make a great deal of sense as a follow-up, but that’s been the joy of the project for me over the last few years.

The original ‘La Mort’ used spoken word atop some torturous guitar noise and electronics to tell the tale of the extermination of human life by an advanced alien lifeform: Part Two messes about with more voiceovers in other languages, occasionally to amusing effect. Before coming to the spoken content, I’d like to point out that the backing on certain parts of this release actually seems quite musical for Alpha Drone, the long ‘III’ especially jamming out mazy guitar ideas with a sludgy death metal sonority. I’d still avoid using the word “song” to describe any of the 4 tracks, largely due to an absence of rhythms, although the vocal cadences of ‘II’ approach singing during the wordless outro. By contrast, ‘I’ is all obliteration at the hands of deconstructed guitar noise, with flashes of extreme metal riffing showing through the distortion.

In terms of the vocal element, I find it hard to tell if Ritter is being serious with all the treatments he puts his voice through. I’m intrigued how sure I am that the Latin (or possibly modern Italian depending on my ignorance) narration was recorded by Ritter himself, since his slightly nasal tones have appeared on Alpha Drone material in the past, notably Da Capo, which was a reading of several short fictions; nevertheless, between recording ‘II’ and ‘III’ he seems to have developed a Scottish accent (he’s German), and thus the fuck is effectively confused out of me. ‘IV’ has a shock value all its own when a deep, menacing voice gets switched for a ridiculous scrambled recording of sped-up high pitch, like a Minion rapping while on helium. Needless to say, as the conclusion of the EP, it leaves a bewildering impression.

The reason ‘La Mort’ was originally so effective was due to the focused nature its narrative brought to Alpha Drone’s wandering creativity, giving a necessary motive for the power electronics and ugly noise already used in the past. La Mort - Part Two doesn’t mean so much to me as a result of the spoken word having less semantic impact, but mainly because the aesthetic choices seem not to serve a greater purpose. Alpha Drone recordings haven’t usually been about producing “music” in a traditional sense but about creating emotions and impressions on the listener; here, confusion may be a legitimate response, yet it isn’t a particularly satisfying one.