Dual reviews
"A bunch of
noise" - Noise is relative. When Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring
was first performed in 1913 in Paris, its sonic dissonance and rhythmic
clatter—meant to express and mirror our higher tolerance for noise in
the mechanized world—were met not with thrown tomatoes, but a
full-blown riot. If they'd been played this album then, one wonders
whether the audience would have full-on imploded into a mushroom cloud
of flesh. Which is a roundabout way of saying that listeners of 2106
might see Pyroclastics' basic reliance on noise-as-what's-annoying-now
as rather quaint.Listeners of metal are divided on noise: Some think it's shit, some appreciate its massive relevance and influence on so much else of what we listen to. Personally, I consider myself something of a noise fan, and this third Dual album—the band is, surprise surprise, a duo, consisting of Doug Theriault on custom-built guitar/electronics and Ed Chang, electronics—ain't half bad. It references, as is hard to avoid, the usual Alec Empire/Merzbow axis, but also leaps into Naked City/Mr. Bungle/Atomsmasher/Venetian Snares territory as well—the bouncy jazz-grind bop of "Shadow of Death" being a prime example of this tendency towards improv.
Nonetheless, Pyroclastics is a pretty familiar listen, and since it doesn't vary its message throughout, or take any particularly impressive risks, it's nothing you haven't heard before done better or even noisier. But for those moments in your life, and for me they come three, maybe four times a year, when just nothing else will do the trick but noise, this collection of scatterbrain percussion, hiccupping distortion, and all-out controlled chaos spazz is as functional a well-timed headfuck as should be expected from any self-respecting noise album. If that isn't a contradiction.
Daniel Lukes - Decibel magazine (with Iron Maiden on the cover!)
http://www.decibelmagazine.com/reviews/jan2007/dual.aspx
Dual Pyroclastics
Ed Chang, già dentro progetti come
Spin-17, Rust Ionics,
Agents At Midnight, Hang Degc., vanta anche collaborazioni
con personaggi come Aaron Dilloway (Wolf Eyes), Donald
Miller (Borbetomagus), Marshall Allen (Sun Ra Arkestra),
John Dieterich (Deerhoof) e David Nuss (NNCK).
Insieme al chitarrista Doug Theriault, invece, si occupa
dell’avventura Dual, che con “Pyroclastics” taglia il traguardo
del terzo album, che arriva dopo “{duel}” e “Destroy All Improv”.
Il tutto (16 tracce compresse in 28 minuti) viene prodotto tramite
l’elettronica di Chang e la chitarra di Theriault, ed è un duro
colpo per orecchie e cervello.
Giocando sull’improvvisazione, vengono sputate fuori a raffica
schegge noise e beats grindcore da lasciare tramortiti. Suoni
‘strozzati’ e caustici, feedback laceranti e nevrosi multiple.
La durata complessiva del disco potrà sembrare sostenibile,
ma alla fine se ne esce quasi con l’impressione di avere subito
una sottile e fastidiosa tortura.
(Quodlibet)
(4/5)
Massimiliano Drommi
- 16-4-2007
Dual - Pyroclastics
New York City noise-monger and
electronic musician Ed Chang can always be counted on for a
brain-melting slab of recorded insantiy and Dual's Pyroclastics is no
exception. Dual is Chang's collaboration with guitarist Doug Theriualt,
and this is their third release.
There's no way to describe the monster lying dormant on the CD, waiting
to unleash itself on the listener – like John Oswald on acid? Like Oval
in a very bad mood? Like a laptop in a hurricane? Steve Vai in a
blender? Songs don't begin they just blast out of nowhere at a hundred
miles an hour. The songs don't end they just fall apart in a really
charming way.
This is frenzied, manic spastic insanity and it will either really
cleanses the pallet or drive you fucking nuts or both. I love it! Fans
of experimental noise – this is your music!
Gordon B. Isnor , Left Hip Magazine
http://www.lefthip.com/review_detail.php?reviewID=513&PHPSESSID=c5ec90dbf4037e
Dual - Pyroclastics
Severe noise/thrash from the duo of Ed
Chang (electronics) and Doug Theriault (guitar), sixteen tracks in 28
minutes. Chang, among other things, fills a percussive role, cycling
samples from who-knows-where in overlaid and chaotic patterns. The
briefer cuts, and there are several less than a minute, inevitably
remind me at least a little bit of those sub-15 second pieces Zorn
included on the first Naked City disc, though these are far less
overtly structured. They’re intense and assaultive but after the
initial barrage, I’m not sure what’s left to ponder. Theriault’s
guitar, in pieces like the relatively lengthy “My Ashes, Your Eyes”,
takes on connotations of rapturous metal solos, flagellating through
the space in an orgasmic frenzy. There’s something to be said for that
when delivered with such abandon, I suppose, though I also feel a
contrary impulse, one that counsels, “Rein it in a bit, guys”. It’s
interesting how, despite any real regular rhythms, vocals, etc. there’s
a decidedly rock-like feel to this session, more so than a purely
noise/improv sensation, though some of the more disjointed cuts almost
get there. There’s even a slight tinge of dub in a piece like “Tremor,
Out of Space”. Not a bad outing if you’re so inclined and over its
course, the out and out willingness to consistently nail balls to the
wall becomes at least a bit beguiling. There’s none of the adolescent
obnoxiousness that mars (for this listener) much other work in this
area and on the final track, one titled (archly?) “Pastiche”, there are
occasional hints of wider sonic concerns.
Brian Olewnick - Bagatellen
http://www.bagatellen.com/archives/reviews/001332.html
Dual - Pyroclastics
Dual pairs guitarist
Doug Theriault with
Ed Chang, here on electronics. The aim is to produce short, sharp
bursts of power improv. Chang is essentially a digital drummer,
firing out trills and rattles of pseudo-Metal beats. Theriault's
guitar wriggles histrionically through high registers, descends into
depths of super-detuned sludge, and lays down sheets of unfretted
glissandi. Pyroclastics occasionally chokes on its own
distortion. There's no real let up within any of these blasts,
except when one of the players pauses briefly for breath...
Sam Davies - The WIRE.Oct 2006
Dual - Pyroclastics
Noise guitar and electronics by Doug
Theriault and Ed Chang. Collage of phrases from the one-sheet:
"unearthly tectonics" "shredding it up like a real experimental
guitarist should" "particle smasher blast-beats" "setting the blender
to, well, explode." You get the idea. Most tracks are short and
intense, with very fast cut-up samples along with the guitar.
Pick any track – they’re all amazing (and similar). Most tracks end
about 4 seconds early.
Dual
- "duel"
DUAL
are two twisted NYC improvisors, guitarist Doug Theriault and
electronics manipulator Ed Chang, and {duel} is a compilation of free
noise bouts recorded between 1999 and 2001. It's an insane and
exhilarating disc, sounding like Derek Bailey's drum 'n bass album as
realized by Alec Empire's Digital Hardcore Recordings. Theriault veers
from Bailey-style subterfuge to big Van Halen licks and churning
industrial fuzz, while Chang works best when he simply lays down a
thumping distorted beat. The record company puts it best: "No holds
barred, hardcore free improv in the worst possible sense between two
improvisors at their peak (of the day), speaking in a language no one
but themselves could possibly hope to (or want to) understand." Totally
gross and totally fantastic.
David Keenan - The WIRE Issue 215 January 2002
Dual - "Destroy All Improv"
29 tracks - very
short, concentrated
bursts of manic, frantic
energy, Destroy
All Improv
Ed
Chang and Doug Theriault deliver a CDR that is bound to cut shreds and
slices out of your ordinary senses and implant a wildman’s wild
thoughts and dreams in your mindscape, as they dip into treacherous
currents of contemporeana: This is New York City April, and it couldn’t
be fresher. I don’t believe my son over in Crown Heights, Brooklyn,
will have this influence him, but I kind of wish it would; we all need
some insanity vitamins now and then, and these guys spread the honest
stuff far and wide, in a jagged pattern, between the Now and the Then,
making Easy a little Tough, which is healthy, yes, healthy and
wholesome.
The
label issues this information about DUAL:
DUAL
is Doug Theriault on guitar and Ed Chang on electronics. DUAL's music
is about the tension, release, destruction, resurrection and
intersection of sound-objects in space. And kung fu, lots of kung fu.
Listen. And Learn. Enjoy the Magic.
Chris
says: Imagine Merzbow, Photek, Aphex Twin & Van Halen in a blender
then multiply that by 15 million!
Sure
enough – but I hear other guys in there too, if we must compare, like
for instance the formidable desperation of John Zorn, thinking
especially about the corrugation of a CD like Spy vs. Spy from 1989,
and I hear Rotcod Zzaj and his accomplices, as well as Jeff Kaiser and
Chris Forsyth. These DUAL guys are probably much younger than those
aforementioned, and I’m sort of happy to hear a couple of guys who’ve
restored the right kind of panic! This is good stuff for forlorn ears
and used-to-it-all souls, because if you let the content of Destroy All
Improv invade the crevasses of your thought forms, your shattered
thoughts and disrupted feelings will paint numerous in-the-skull
masterpieces – so be it! This is not just improvisation and haphazard
electronics. This soars in the domain of modern art music. Tough luck
if you can get it!
The
beautiful cover – a latter day revolution enigma! – brings joy to an
old fart like myself who’s been around a Europe where The
Baader-Meinhof network blew up banks in the 1970s in a gesture of
political poetry, but I suppose DUAL’s cover refers more to latter day
world trade organization resistance and anti-globalization.
Nonetheless, the cover and the music harmonize, both coming across in
outrage and spiraling destruction of values that serve us no more,
right?
The
music – often cut-up, shredded, poured out like gravel into the
machinery of night – manages to make a lasting impression of feverish
zeal, unforgiving efforts and also of a love of universal justice which
hovers over all these forcefully desperate moves.
I
hear a star-crushing machine at the edge of the Horizon of Events,
sucking the matter of contemporary society into its unappeasable void,
beyond which the black hole of Truth compresses the plans and dirty
looks of the powerful into a singularity which looses all meaning, all
here and now, perhaps to seep out into another dimension through the
gentle activities of Quantum Mechanics at Planck length dimensions; who
knows!
Some
of the titles of the short tracks may supply some ins on the workings
of the minds of these relentless but very talented artists. Let’s
ponder the significance of titles like Sin Is Plenty, Shredded Truths,
Topography of My Rectum, Rebuilding Destruction, Molotov Cocktail the
Rich and so forth. Crude poetry of today, one might say. Sure! I’m glad
every time I hear young people with the will and power to let the power
and strength of frustration take shape in art and music; we need these
young prophets more than ever!
Sonoloco Reviews
http://home.swipnet.se/sonoloco13/tandjrec/destroy.html
"duel"
"Dual are Doug Theriault (guitar) and Ed Chang (electronics), the 'exquisite’ production is by Scott Colburn: furious attacks that make you think of Zorn in Naked City's times in session with the Truman's Water of 'goodspeed the hemorrage' (I think this is supposed to be Godspeed You Black Emperor - EC) dealing with industrial stuff d'antan and with Bailey's covers.
Pluriequations
too hard to imagine? I know even for
me. But I don't know what else to
say. Someone would maybe like to kill me
for a review like that but I really don't know what else to say but
this is an
album that makes you literally scream. (8/10)"
Blow Up Magazine
(translated from French)
http://www.blowupmagazine.com/index.php
DESTROY
ALL IMPROV (Toast and Jam Recordings, 2004)
Dual
is a clever experimental duo consisting of Ed Chang on electronics and
Doug Theriault on guitars. Here, each of the 29 tracks is a small world
of experimentation with electronic sounds, noises and guitar phrases.
Theriault plays some chords in tracks like "Sin is Plenty" letting
Chang deliver his electronic ideas. But most of the time both musicians
are delivering dissonances or multiple rhythms at the same time making
each track really innovative. It is amazing to listen Chang twisting
and smashing each electronic sound that he delivers, such as a sort of
horn in "Protest in the Bedroom" that is twisted and turned making eat
a completely different sound in just a few seconds. This is pure
experimental music with interesting ideas and a lot of variation (each
track is completely different from the other). For open minded people.
Favorite
tracks: "Protest in the Bedroom", "Forever lost" and "Come and Eat"
Contact:
www.tandjrec.com
http://www.musicextreme.com/cd0405b.htm
Duel
Dual
is local improviser-about-town Doug (Office Products) Theriault and
NYC/PDX composer-player-character Ed (Blindfold) Chang, who shrewdly
describes the caustic union as an exercise in "assault-and-battery
improv." Song titles sound like settings on Satan's
blender--"Puncture," "Tenderize," "Flay," "Serrate," "Emasculate"--and
Theriault's fingers-in-the-Cuisinart guitar work chops up ragged scraps
of feedback, detuned plonks and seizure-inducing fretwork. Chang shoots
out rapid-fire beams of radioactive electronic noise, defibrillating
beats and monster-movie samples. All told, as refreshing as a slap in
the face with a razor...the best way to wake up in the morning, really.
Willamette Week, John
Graham
http://www.wweek.com/story.php?story=2809
Free-jazz improv feel to this noisy sound collage. Crazy maniacal feel to it all. Improv noise guitar playing figures in front amidst heavy samples, treated drums (acous and electro), and fine tape manipulations. Like Zorn or Mr Bungle and Caspar Brotzman in a cyclone. Most songs brief. Seriously fucked fucked up for the seriously fucked up.