Prurient
Through the Window
Release Date: Mar 19, 2013
Genre(s): Electronic, Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock
Record label: Blackest Ever Black
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Album Review: Through the Window by Prurient
Very Good, Based on 6 Critics
Based on rating 8/10
Under the Prurient moniker, noise artist Dominick Fernow spent much of his massive discography exploring harsh textures and grim isolation via rewired electronics and writhing, pained feedback tones. These dark compositions were informed by the harsh noise tradition of artists like Aube, Merzbow, and Wolf Eyes, but also took cues from black metal and grindcore, resulting in sounds with a devilish intensity. Through the Window sees Fernow further embracing more traditional forms of European techno, with discernible beats and electronic melodies co-existing with squelches of noise.
Based on rating 7.4/10
The path from black metal to techno via noise is so well-travelled these days that you could, if you were feeling melodramatic, call it an exodus. It's a trip the now L.A.-based Dominick Fernow has been prolifically and prophetically plugging away at for well over a decade, carving out a reputation for ferociously uncompromising sonics with an inquisitive air. Having taken a pleasurable detour toward grinding synth pop on his 2011 releases Bermuda Drain and Time's Arrow, with Through the Window, Fernow convincingly throws himself to the growling hounds of techno.
Based on rating 7/10
It should fly in the face of reason that an artist working within the noise genre could release such a high output of resourceful music. As contemporaries Whitehouse and Wolf Eyes remain faithful to their black magick, Ian Fernow has used noise as an ashy template to explore endless musical avenues. On his first release of 2013, Fernow (aka Prurient) serves up sampler of genre excursions with three-track LP Through the Window.
Based on rating 3.5/5
Review Summary: The world is your club, but no one ever seems to come.Perhaps one of the most prominent and prolific noise artists, Dominick Fernow is involved in numerous projects spanning multiple genres. And while his most high-profile gig may be helming the synths for Cold Cave, Fernow is best associated with the Prurient moniker. Having been around now for a good decade and a half, Prurient alone has covered a lot of ground within various forms of noise, ambient, and power electronics.
Based on rating 3.5/5
Reinvention’s double-edged sword is a valuable but precarious tool in any artist’s repertoire. Valuable because it pushes the work to discover new territory and converse in new forms. Precarious because it can alienate the audience, but also crucially because new territory poses new obstacles and challenges to your usual methods. However, regardless of the danger, reinvention sometimes becomes necessary.
Opinion: Very Good
Concluding her benchmark book The Virtual Window, the late cinema scholar Anne Friedberg recalled with sadness the suicide of philosopher Gilles Deleuze. In 1995, after more than a decade of suffering from a suffocating pulmonary disease, Deleuze threw himself through the window of his Paris apartment. I often wonder what might have been going through his mind between that initial launch and the final impact.