Review: Death-Orgasm Connector by Atrax Morgue
Atrax Morgue - Death-Orgasm Connector
(2003, Slaughter Productions)
Sparsity and negative space is the name of the game on this 2003 release by Euronoiser and Italian gay guy Marco Corbelli, better known as Atrax Morgue. Opening track “I Kill Sex (again)” sees Corbelli’s staticky rasps and shrieks punctuated by sci-fi synth notes. While track 2, “Inside Your Body,” presents a denser sound, we now know what sort of listen we’re in for. Death-Orgasm Connector excels in its inadequacies, it offers 10 tracks, and plays like the soundtrack to a grave consequence.
Typical of the power electronics style, Atrax Morgue’s compositions are explorations of a single idea, reiterated with few new ideas throughout–and at times–beat to death. The track “Wish Nothing” focuses on a screech that conjures the image of a contact mic being rubbed on a balloon. The title track on this album is a total standout. With Corbelli’s vocals and synthesis reaching several powerful death-climaxes and a killer cut-to-black bass drum hit of an ending. The following track “A Nasty Trick” has a high pitched drone as the canvas as Corbelli’s constant laughter paints a picture that isn’t funny at all. Something evil and malicious lurks in the giggles here, The low raspy grunts are almost grinch-like and Corbelli’s spacey echoing production feels nightmarish. Like nearly all of Atrax Morgue’s work that I’ve heard, this track simply feels negative. A pioneer of power electronics and industrial music at large, Corbelli is heralded by many as a luminary in the style. Anyone familiar with his work knows that he lived by the noise code. With an intimidatingly large discography, his music is characterised by themes of sexuality and violence. Corbelli operated the record label Slaughter Productions and chose to leave his life behind in 2003, thereby consecrating himself in the noise canon.
The sounds of Atrax Morgue aren’t rich or luscious. The music doesn’t move or appear to be full of life. It’s empty and dry and decaying. It is filled with cracks. The cracks are important, this is where the music takes shape. The synthesisers are crunchy and imperfect. Corbelli’s vocal stylings aren’t polished or pretty, at times he forgoes language altogether and makes mouth noises. He sounds like he’s doing an impression of a rat. The ugliness is how the music takes form. The cracks in this work allow something to slowly seep through. Some sort of lifeless molasses that is persistent enough to make Death-Orgasm Connector extremely effective.
