Dual - Caste reviews

AmbiEntrance [June 2001]
Add Dual to the list of ambient guitar explorationists... and put the name high upon that list, particularly if you're into a dark vision of what six-string transmutations should be. They belong to a caste of sonic-creators that forge irresistibly bleak soundworld. The ambient soundscapes of Dual hover in a slightly rough neverworld awash in the grey movements of vast guitar-noise-drones and decorated with other unexpectation. I found the desolate realms of Caste to be a most enjoyable visitation... un-guitarlike abstractions of sombre beauty.
AmbiEntrance [June 2001]
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The Organization of Sound [August 2000]
This is a very interesting disc by the English guitar synthesis project, Dual. Caste is a captivating recording that's strikingly reminiscent of John Cage's Imaginary Landscapes and early electronic sound artist Pierre Schaeffer's 1948 composition Etude aux Chemins de fer. Dual's exciting blend of Musique Concrete and production laden guitar synthesis takes the listener on a round-trip through dark sonorous caverns and ubiquitous sonic dreamscapes. A fantastic recording, with solid production, great sound quality, and a helping of imagination, Caste takes the listener places rarely visited, even in the finest experimental / avant-garde music. Great record guys, keep up the stellar work! The Organization of Sound will be looking for future releases.
The Organization of Sound [August 2000]
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SIDELINES MAGAZINE [April 2001]
Dual music is one of droning guitar-scapes with a percussive edge. But that is only the tip of the sonic iceberg, as much invention is filtered throughout this astonishing disc. "Blicks" moulds gentle drones along steel-wool scrubbed train tracks, before the shifting, swirling drones make a crackling connection to staggered, looped percussive textures that sound both mechanical and of a soft, wooden origin. Feedback twitches during the introductory stages of "Chpst:k," sporadic tones ringing vibrantly and calmly simmering, before slinking through the jungle of drones at night, elastic plops peering through the sonic foliage; this leads into "Spydel," and an oscillating drone so thick it stifles; just when it seems it will grow unbearable, the song cuts off into dead silence…and continues around the bend, amidst strange metallic ticking and the pulse of a heart, and insects murmuring underneath. Wild stuff! The sun-bathed landscape of the Arctic shimmers during "Wirm," slowly melting attrition of self as one fuses with the glare and the snow and the intermingled combination of both. An icy, foreboding death awaits, as everything disintegrates into separate particles of deterioration. This extends to "Crain," the death a genesis of new existence, a metamorphosis forged in the resilient textures of drone and distant screech. "Isochemic" vibrates like a cracked window, before succumbing to the sludgy embrace of the heavy, darkened drones. Dual is on par with Maeror Tri / Troum, though distinctive enough to captivate on their own. More than recommended!
SIDELINES MAGAZINE [April 2001]
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FREQ MAGAZINE [September 2000]
Caste collects together five years' worth of guitar-based noise sculpture from Colin Bradley and Julian Coope, both once involved of the intriguingly angular Spleen. Their work as Dual is densely textured, layering spluttering gushes of string-wrenched gasps into feedback drones the like of which haven't been properly explored in this guise since Main went further into the digital realms of CD-R mixing and live laptop processing. That Isolationist sense of marking the outer reaches of possibility for extracting noise from the guitar is here fully intact, with the pervading sense of dread cold and existential wonder which the genre invoked inherent to the core Caste's six tracks - arranged into one long piece over the CD to suit the miasmic mood. The organic feel to the sounds is amplified by the progressive dissolution of a note into a warm drone, or a sub-bass undertow melted beneath a frisson of volume-controlled feedback - with percussive interjections making a large space for the whole to reverberate, reaching cruise-speed during the peaking pulse beat of "Crain". When a plucked string or brushed metallic strike crops up, its intentions can only be ominous, though a headlong dive into the mix reveals depths of Modernist machinations at the music's heart. Caste requires attention for a proper experience of its overtones and harmonics to get the most from the rise and collapse of each segment of granularity; the darkroom ambience could easily be terrifying, in the way that natural phenomena can be, as levels are increased and polyrhythms (percussive or textural) interlocked to panic-button stages of near-oppressive intensity. Sometimes it even becomes hard to breathe.
With titles to match the abstraction or laterally referred implications of their music - "Chpst:k", "Wirm", "Blicks" - each piece edges from the dust of its predecessor, and more conventionally descriptive names would perhaps lessened the impact of the whole. "Isochemic" is the most evocative of certain brain-states, closing the album in a drifting iceberg rumble and the hum of electric’s left out to weather in acoustic residue. Not one for the impatient listener, Caste makes for some challenging listening, and deserves playing at the loudest volumes for the fullest stretching of any nearby double-glazing too.
FREQ MAGAZINE [September 2000]
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