Untitled 731

CD - Untitled 731

Play 90 second soundbite of 'Untitled 2' @ 'CD quality'

Oh shit!! Weird?! Now, weird could be a statement just as easily as it could be a question; wow, this is weird or, wow is this weird!! Untitled 731 is a most unusual, no bizarre coming together of two almost opposed musical experimentalist sources in David Wheatley (laptop) and James Low (guitar). I find this work extremely difficult to write about without putting people off but, I can't help but feel that that's what Untitled 731 are all about - making music that seemingly makes no sense but actually does have 'rhyme and reason' - somewhere!! Well, it has a begining, it has a middle and it has an end so I guess it's a complete 'work' in most senses!

The words 'angular', 'obtuse', 'diverse' and even 'avant-garde' don't really begin to describe what Untitled 731 are about!! Just six tracks here - not surprisingly entitled 'Untitled 1' through to 'Untitled 7' (but not including '4'!); opening with possibly the harshest track of the lot, 'Untitled 1' is a real tester - an absolute cacophony of frantic 'derived' 'noise' from Wheatley is liberally supported by equally diverse, spiky guitar fills the like of which you don't hear too often. Oh it's harsh alright!! 'Untitled 1' is a real challenge to the senses and I have to say even I found it slightly disturbing and more than a little irritating as it ran out at just shy of fifteen minutes!. 'Untitled 2' is very much in the Frank Zappa school of staccato guitar playing stylee and much the most coherent, cohesive 'overture' on the album. But, this aint like yer Mothers Of Invention stuff, this is like the revenge of 'Chunga's Revenge' coz that Zappa-esque guitar work is backed by more of that experimental 'laptop' irregularity - all squeaks, blips, wails and the rest!! And so it goes on!!

'Untitled 3' through 'Untitled 7' (excluding '4' of course!!) continues the digital onslaught - I find it amazing that Wheatley and Low can keep up with each other coz this might sound totally free-form but I'm sure much of it is pre-meditated and 'arranged'! In their press-pack, Untitled 731 use the term 'post-ideological' to describe their 'music' - sounds cool to me!! 'Untitled 731' isn't an album for the masses, there's not really any commercial viability in it at all but, for the cult experimentalists of the modern musical form there's definitely plenty to talk and argue about. This aint music for the average 'man in the street'!! I think that even Zappa at his most disturbed creative best would have to cast a sideways glance at Untitled 731's mind-fuck musical 'noise' and the mighty Karlheinz Stockhausen would be hard-pressed to come to terms with this harsh, near intimidating, 'electro-babble/guitar-frenzy'!

'Untitled 731' by the combo of the same name is pretty scary shit; it's nightmarish, it's schizoid, it's hellish but, give the guys credit coz I couldn't do it - at least I think I couldn't!! So, it aint like nothing I've heard since the heady days when Stockhausen was playing so futuristically with sound and dynamics - 'Untitled 731' will probably be too much for most people's mirror - but, there will be takers I'm sure - it's finding them that might prove to be a problem for Untitled 731.

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