Roto Visage is the solo project of American Jason Popejoy, and La Muse Cachée is his fourth release. Nine tracks fill 46 minutes of playing time. Musically, this is introspective, hermetic drone-based dark ambient, often using extremely distorted vocals. The production is clear and detailed. The first track, ‘Spiral Ignite Flesh’ is quite different to anything else that follows, featuring short bursts of heavy power electronics and sound sources like classical piano and musical box melodies, for an unsettling effect not too dissimilar to Shining Vril. This segues right in to ‘Somnambulist Carving’, in which echoing footsteps pace back and forth under an array of extended drones and buzzes – think of Mandelbrot and Rasal.Asad. This in turn gives way to ‘Our Very Own’, a more commandingly minimal piece dominated by a single sustained note – in fact, the entire album seems to be sequenced so that there are no silences between tracks, one just crossfades into the next. ‘Into Transformation’ has a ritualistic sound, with gongs and cymbals, reminiscent of acts like Z’EV, Hati and Chaos As Shelter, and a spoken word sample explaining the process of nuclear fission. ‘Smudge’ features more vocals, this time a man speaking, with his voice cut up to produce a stammering and indecisive effect. ‘(Ab)Normal Cell Growth’ has a more industrial feel than the rest of the album, beginning with clatters, crashes and harsh machine noise.    

I’ve saved the best news about this release until last, which is that the entire album is available for free download from the URLs given below. The Roto Visage site has several other releases available, and the Kikapu site is chock-full of free music. So what are you waiting for? 

www.kikapu.com

www.rotovisage.com