Actress & Simon J. Karis – THRASH [CS]

"Nice Music Label presents ‘THRASH’ - an incendiary new collaborative recording from indefinable, incomparable modern giant of electronic music Actress (Darren Cunningham) and NM’s own label head, capricious sound artist Simon J Karis.

Actress and SJK stir up their intertwining trademark elements into a clandestine symmetrical arc over three tracks - each of them bestowing their own edit of ‘THRASH’, with Karis’ urgent acid thumper as a centerpiece. Both drastically remapping their razored hardware collision, staunchly gnawing their respective sounds into oblivion and back again.

Incongruously, Karis drags the duo into his world of “noise” treatments and hifi harshness, all parping distortion and compressed hypercolours, yet Cunningham threads his instantly recognisable swoops of synth graffiti, 8-bit fx throttle and percussive errata in a perfect symbiosis of their palettes.

‘Darren edit’ breathes more and jogs along sparsely enough to deny any requirements of progression from the tenets of electro concepts hinted at, surfing through knackered programming and a circuitous routine of synthetic howls and ragged blipscapes. ‘Simon edit’ actively seeks progression, folding in on itself over its 5+ minutes before reaching its zenith of aquatic riffage and elevated melodic bombast. Karis’ solo track ‘night glaze smashed chalice.alp’ is artfully imposed right in between the two edits of ‘THRASH’ - a muscular 4/4 acid burner, hissing abjectly with refracted room sound and textural horror. Hard as nails."

Nice Music, 2024