Wince - Traum CD (Freak Animal, 2016)

[Scream & Writhe]

WINCE - Traum CD (Freak Animal, 2016)

Review from 8/16/23 ported over from elsewhere: Pulled this one out for the first time in ages this afternoon and my mind was quickly drawing comparisons to K.M. Toepfer's work. Traum doesn't have the complex breadth and depth of the Toepfer brain mine, but it certainly fries synapses in a similar region and both seem to employ similar use of archaic technologies (radio play, in Wince's case). A quick A/B of Traum and Toepfer's Undercut may have them appearing more dissimilar than not (where Toepfer's lean into Colleyian territory serves to accent his surgical precision, Wince merely turns up the frying pan), but I trust the connections my mind was making and there is a resonant violence to both works that comes through in their shared sonic palates. How these two fit into the greater noise lineage is also an interesting thought: Undercut sounds like it comes from some place out of time (or another domain), while Traum could be mistaken for a forgotten 90s gem. It certainly seems to have gone relatively unmentioned since its initial release a mere seven eight years ago (a date I was surprised at seeing), and it feels like it's at least over a decade old at this point. Perhaps, it, too, exists out of time. As a final side note, I've always dug the tracks going from longest to shortest as opposed to the inverse on the majority of noise albums. Really great stuff.