Review: Beast Nest – Sicko

BANDCAMP.

Sicko is constantly materialising. As glitches scatter, warm synth drones rise from beneath, in turn receding to reveal strings in reverse, distorted voices…these pieces are forever becoming the next state of becoming, the energy restless and goaded forward, each new moment instigating yet another foaming reaction. It’s a dizzy experience to inhabit. There are always several misaligned rhythms in process at any one time, as in the whirling distorted loops that rise out of “Jsun”, resembling the stuck horns of a dozen 18 wheelers all flying through an intersection. Yet while often intense, there’s never an air of menace. Rather Sicko feels like the expression of an uplifting mantra, its volume elevated to drown out life’s unwanted forces: this will pass, nothing is forever, change is constant.

Much of the record seems to inhabit exoplanetary natural spaces, with electronics zipping around like insects, the moist bloops of fish leaping out of the water and bursts of alien birdsong. So often associated with serenity, the evocation of nature here is surreal and vibrant, swirled into propulsive beats and electronic noise, again speaking to the world not as a site of rest, but of spectacular and inexorable movement, of collision and eruption. Everything here is lit in fierce sunlight, the colours galvanised by the rays, limbs and instruments flailing under photosynthetic supercharge.