From the very first note that rises in, you know this album's going to be something special. They are all credited with playing home made instruments which to me is the proof of experimentation. Bonnie McNaim is credited a Squawk Box & String Pipe; Marlon Porter is credited Spring Thing 2, sheet metal & bass (?); Paul Valsecchi plays the Spring Thing 1 among other things; Jim Wilson plays Thing, String Pipe, Tape Machine Thing & Sheet Metal; Ure Thrall plays a Thing.Side one opens with "Transmission" a dark and flowing piece of atmospheric music and a good promise of better things to come. A live piece called "Voice Of Entropy" follows next, as dark and smooth as some Sci Fi marine creature, hauling it's massive body to the surface to glide with menace through the waters. It's machine-like yes, but not really mechanical, more smooth, like something out of a Giger painting, or the new-improved killing machine from TERMINATOR 2. "Zone 12" follows this, gliding effortlessly through the speakers like the soundtrack to a dark and deadly Space movie. It changes slowly, gently, yet with watery leathery threat. "Vérité Morte" is perhaps a little more structured than the other pieces, with a strict beat following it much of the time. It reminds me a little of BRUCE GILBERT's enigmatic solo stuff a little, although it may be as close to DOME. It changes it's form, as if it's black cloak were living flesh. "Descending A Stare" is a fairly straightforward, if atmospheric piece of music built up around a continual, almost understated drum beat, Machine/factory noise rises and falls in anti-patterns to the rhythm. "The Shadow I Knew" moves in graceful slow motion and at great distance, again like something by Giger, except this time a semi-biological cityscape moving with vibrant life, as if it's body were amplifying the processes going on beneath the thin dermal layer.Side two opens with "DéJà Hier", another thing performed live on CSAW, and again, a dark and drifting piece of music. Despite the fact that most of the instruments on the inlay card suggest percussive noise, the whole thing sweeps along on a dark and semi-solid mat of sound, swelling and drifting, yet seeming always to have control, to seek direction and stay on course. It eventually congeals into an Ethnic percussive piece, rich with atmosphere, heavy with sound. "Melange Nuit" is next, a darker, more evil piece of music, lurking like some dark intent as Bonnie (I assume) talks over the soundtrack, her words indistinguishable (French perhaps). The sound hangs in the air, suggestive of factories, of decay, of old, badly kept, temperamental nachines-turned-malengine, awaiting the optimum moment to rebel. "Conundrum" comes next, waves of dark atmospheric sound as usual, but this time with the percussion driving along as well as anything by MUSLIMGAUZE or O YUKI CONJUGATE. Some of this mills around like ground mist, while some leaps out for confrontation. The tempo within the piece seem to be forever switching back and forth before settling into a rich, dense rhythm which drives on for quite some time before fading into... "Rite Of Springs" - another live piece, this time from lawndale. This one, while retaining the overall dark cloak, clatters and howls along like some wounded animal in a frenzy of activity, thudding and clunking in rhythm while 'hidden' sounds suggest themselves on the periphery of sensation. It finally fades to nothing without ceremony.This is without doubt a mood album. And the mood it portrays is a dark and sinister one. It reminds me of David Myers' ARCANE DEVICE music, yet is perhaps even less structured. One thing is for sure, release onto CD is long overdue.Originally reviewed for Soft Watch.