Paul Mill‘s ultra-rare 2009 debut album as The Lord finally sees the light of day again as yet another ultra-rare release from the premiere English noise label, Exotic Pylon.
Gettin’ Off the Meths is a carnival of looped sounds, noises and voices. After a disembodied female computer voice gives us a brief introduction in “The Start of All This,” we’re brought into The Lord’s Burroughsian realm of playful sonic nonsense. Voices collide with each other, creating twisted barbershop quartets, while beats made of glitches, electronics and nanosecond samples shift direction like right and left are really the same thing. Odd musical bits dance with ethereal drones and feedback becomes percussion. It’s like Lewis Carroll joined Pan-Sonic and took over Negativland, though without the blatant social commentary of the latter.
So much experimental music is made by humorless stone faces who take themselves way too seriously, but it’s easy to imagine Paul Mills giggling as he constructs his sonic pieces. Not that he’s flippant about his art, mind you, he’s just having a bit of fun as he goes along, and that smile is infectious.
