DIMINISHING
DIMINISHING "The Unnamable"
By Dr. Abner Mality
DIMINISHING is a new project featuring Dave Brenner of GRIDFAILURE fame. Apparently putting out a new GRIDFAILURE work every other month and co-managing a major PR outfit isn't enough to keep Dave busy nor is GRIDFAILURE...hardly a pop band by anybody's standard...bleak enough. Nope, to scratch that itch to create truly dystopian and suicide-inducing music, we now have DIMINISHING, which is created with the aid of YATSU guitarist Lane Oliver.
This is real wrist-slitting stuff but it's not quite as apocalyptic as it could be. The press mentioned comparison to MERZBOW and KHANATE, which are two of the noisiest acts in the galaxy. DIMINISHING is more low key than those skull kickers, much more focused on creating quiet unease using a variety of hiss, buzz,,clanks and hums. There are some industrial beats here and also heavy guitar racket, but this is very much an ambient project. The 11 minute plus "No Fire, No Fanfare" has huge SUNN 0))) doom riffs and that's the most blatantly heavy of the songs here. Much of the rest of the "music" is more subtle..."The Rats I've Fed", the title track and "The Culmination of Years of Self Abuse" (a real knee-slapper this last one) are uneasy soundscapes using quiet but very ominous sounds and frequencies, often mixed with mumbled/whispered vocals that occasionally burst into howls. You can be sure there's no "positive thinking" messages embedded in any of this.
If you''re looking for soundscapes even more dystopian than GRIDFAILURE, you've found it with DIMINISHING.