DOUBLE MUTE – Corporate Culture

DOUBLE MUTE – Corporate Culture

I can honestly say that I have never come across anything that sounds quite like Double Mute does, and I am absolutely loving that! How to even explain or describe such a unique sound as that of this Norwegian-based entity whose sonic experiments take in noise rock, electronica, avantgarde music, art rock. alternative pop, metal . . . and God knows what else!

These perfectly layered compositions do not exactly unfold at a glacial pace but appear in constant motion and never stay in one place for long, and it is downright thrilling when they skip off their path and serve up a huge surprise – a case in point being the mind-warping track named “CEO.” The EP is surprisingly cohesive, yet its atmosphere never feels samey, which is one of many reasons why I keep coming back to it. Or in other words, it never truly feels as if one has managed to decipher and properly absorb its whirlwind of ideas even after multiple listens, which in turn means that one never grows tired of exploring it. There is always that sense of something more hiding underneath its countless textures. If Perdition City by Ulver was flung into space and twisted into alien form, would that by any chance come out sounding like Corporate Culture?

At times dissonant and raw only to veer off and head into much calmer and more melancholy territory, parts of it may appear (depending on one’s frame of mind at the time of digesting these four compositions, mind you) charmingly absurd and purposefully melodramatic but also subtly harsh and unnerving, almost as if there is a tangible chilliness seeping into the bottom layers of the song material that infuses it with an eerie quality. Said quality serves as a brilliant contrast to the output’s more lighthearted moments. You rarely receive an album that feels confrontational and thought-provoking like this one does, and a few words and sentences are hardly sufficient with respect to summing up what Double Mute’s innovative release offers, so I will limit myself to urging you, the reader, to head on over to Bandcamp when you are not pressed for time so that you can devote more than just a couple of listens to the musically devious thing. On a final note, I love the fact that Gymnocal Industries went with a rather atypical physical format here, namely a bizcard CD. How can one not love and cherish something as quirky and eccentric as that?

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