ASTMA (4) / A Spirale – The Cost Of Service

Much to my amazement it’s been already a year since I reviewed ‘CaseMatte’ , a collaborative release between Russia’s Astma (Alexei Borisov (electronics, guitar, voice) and Olga Nosova (drums, percussion, voice, contact mic, effects) and A Spirale from Italy, (Mario Gabola on acoustic and feedback saxophone, scream, amplified strings and Maurizio Argenziano on electric guitar). I thought it was much more recent, maybe two months ago. But not so; one year! In that year they have played together at the festival ‘Noise & Fury’ in Moscow and another tour in Italy, all under the banner of ‘radical impure, noise rock, spoken word, hippo, postcore, song writing, combining Bruce Russel with Alboth! and VoiceCrack with Dalek…’ and it seems to continuing the music of their first collaborative release. Lots of wild drumming, feedback, screaming, but also, occasionally something that is more introspective and mellow. Even intimate sound poetry finds a place here. It seems as if these more careful moments are placed on more strategic positions here and bring a better balance to this disc. Thirty-three quite intense minutes here which will leave no listener unharmed or relaxed in anyway, I should think. There is a fine, raw energy emerging from this disc. Tiring, but satisfying. (FdW, Vital Weekly)