Usurper, paired with the former members of Decaer Pinga/Prick Decay, let loose on two head-scratching free noise jams that are infused with the same spirit of sonic shenanigans as various cohorts of the Los Angeles Free Music Society. While recorded live and on separate dates with Doll and Nyoukis individually, both tracks explore the sonic potential of non-musical objects and that of the human voice.

The first track, with Doll, opens with what sounds like some sort of marble rolling and plunking about inside of a game (Hungry Hungry Hippo?) and then fills out with some added cranking noises (Jack-in-the-Box?). From here, there is a mingling of these sounds with added scrapes and squeaks, and the vocal wheezing and hacking that emerges around the five-minute mark sounds as though someone is trying to unleash some pesky lung cookie. It all crests eleven minutes in then builds back up the momentum for the duration, with vocal hiccupping and various whistle-blowers becoming more pronounced. At the onset of the track with Nyoukis, there is some similar crank and clatter, but this jam is centered more around some seriously strange vocalizations and breathing patterns, along with some oddly blown noises, that become completely blown-out and manic in sections.

I?ll stop at that, as really no amount of words will get you any closer to wrapping your head around this. I can?t say this is something I?ll return to often, but damn if it wasn?t a treat to the ears those first few spins. 6/10 -- David Perron (3 September, 2008)