A cassette outing for this 28-minute outburst from Canada’s Evil Gal, originally released digitally last November, here released through the uncompromising Industrial Coast imprint. Evil Gal is an offshoot of New Brunswick’s Women Of The Pore (M Gatling), here with additional sonic architecture from Montréal’s Matthew Donnelly (Fecal Mutiliation).

Both artists have a long pedigree in the world of noise, but ‘Brown Acid’ and ‘The Village Of Doom’ play with a different, slightly more restrained sense of violence, feeling more like a low-budget soundtrack to a particularly vivid video nasty only available through the dark web. ‘Brown Acid’ creeps, prowls and stalks with extreme menace, proceeding on a murky bass sequence over which all manner of sounds – percussion, sax, general unholy disquietude – are overlaid. It’s a thick, gloopy sonic goo that leaves indelible stains on your psyche. In a good way.

‘The Village Of Doom’ is more sparse, though just as freakishly uncomfortable, opening with oscillating sounds like warbling sirens, the hiss of escaping air, distortion, micro-loops of unknown origin and randomised non-rhythms and electronics that sound both chaotic and intricate. Nothing here stays around for long; passages are cut off just as they start to become repetitive, engendering a queasiness and rapid motion that means its fourteen minute duration nonchalantly zips by before ebbing away into surprisingly pleasant texture.

Brown Acid / The Village Of Doom by Evil Gal is released January 3 2020 by Industrial Coast.

Words: Mat Smith