On “The Perfect Swarm”, Thomas Transparent has uncovered a contemporary paradox. Noise, this album seems to say, is still a political statement because it presents us with a vision of the world as it really is – putting the plug in means keeping the truth out.

A revolutionaryl stance, on the other hand, is as immanent to the genre as is applauding a solo at a Cocktail-Jazz concert. Maybe that is why Transparent, an artist who is as critical with himself and his work as he is with the world, has opted for a more personal approach instead of cluttering yet another disc with samples of George W. Bush placed on top of distorted machinal beats.

“The Perfect Swarm” is not a call for arms anway. Already its subtitle, “A Portrait of Metropolitan Overkill In Four Movements” indicates that its interest lies in mirroring what is there instead of projecting a utopian vision towards the future. Its aesthetics, probably correctly, assume that the strongest reaction inside an audience is a heart-felt discontment with the status quo, not the mere consumption of creeds for change.

As could be expected, Transparent is not an unbiased observer. More or less subtle terminology in the press release (which talk about “saturated urban areas” and a “pointlessly massive and vertigo-inducing Dubai skyscraper”) make it clear that he is not a picture perfect, perfectly happy model citizen. But he never stuffs his opinions down anyone else’s throats or even calls on others to join him: The impulse always has to come from deep inside and can not be induced externally.

The music fits this view of the world, as it is equally aware of the beauty of the supersized urban metropolis as it is of its gargantuan, shapeless inhumanity. Sharp piercing noises attack the ear in one moment, while heartbreakingly mesmerising drones come welling up from a pool of plaintive wonders in the next. The harmonies of “Piorun Blesses A Sporting Event At Soldier Field, Chicago” are obscurred by a scar tissue of torturing frequencies and on opening track “Shinjuku Station, West Exit, Ticket Gates”, every second could just as much bring forth abstract clicks and cuts, deep bass murmurs or deafening sheets of static.

At first, the hence-and-forth sounds moody and aggressive, but the more one is confronted with it, the more one comes to the simple conclusion that “The Perfect Swarm” really captures the multipolarity of our city conglomerates pretty accurately. The truth is out – now don’t close your ears to it!

By Tobias Fischer

Homepage: The Domestic Front
Homepage: 8kmob Records