Orphan Swords: License to Desire
Desire Records
Belgian outfit Orphan Swords (festival curators, Idiosyncratics label-runners, and art/noise freaks Pierre de Muelenaere and Yannick Franck) follows up its 2014 EP Risk in the New Age with a new three-tracker for Paris-based Desire Records. License To Desire might very well be the project's most powerful outing to date, judging by the tracks' uncompromising, take-no-prisoners vibe.
The cyclonic opener “Marchosias” bolts from the gate with an insistent techno-house pulse, but it's no one-dimensional dance track. An industrial vibe quickly sets in as the duo batters the relentlessly grinding groove with aggressive slams and smears it with grime, and as its ten minutes minutes tick by the track swells to a ferocious roar guaranteed to drop a jaw or two when played at the proper volume (maximum, that is). The machines have but a moment to cool down before “Asmoday” appears with its own fiery take on industrial-electronic techno, this one half the length of the opener but, truth be told, even more intense. Seething with lethal intent, the music is charged with enough energy to decimate a building block or two, and consequently the slightly less aggressive “Hooker” registers as a wise choice of closer for the release.May 2015