Pale World - 'Neighbourhood' (V38)

‘Neighbourhood’ is the latest dispatch of raw, street-level harsh-gloom from Pale World of the Black Country. Previous releases on esteemed labels like Brachliegen, Outsider Art, AAD and Trust Collective - plus a fantastic, skull-crushing live show - have decisively established Pale World as a figure of note within the UK noise collective.

‘Neighbourhood’ could be one of Pale World’s most caustic statements yet; the noise feels just that little bit noisier while the passages of sorrowful, bleak ambient ennui communicate an acute despondency. There’s a process of refinement at work, a desire to keep contuse and compress these already fundamental elements further and further until the metaphorical diamond is created.

This is what makes Pale World wonderfully unique; the overwhelming feeling of forced retraction and suffocating inversion. Whereas many noise creators project their sound outward and create an propulsive audio assault, Pale World instead sucks the energy out of the listener and into itself, like a ferocious, vampiric black hole of swirling, abrasive tone and volume, utilising negative space metaphorically, literally and emphatically, leaving a blissful numbness in it’s aftermath.

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Released June 16, 2024. Venalism V38.