Cattle x Girl Sweat
Live at Assembly
DL / LP
Fighting Boredom have been listening to the ‘split LP featuring two of Leeds’ noisiest and most cathartic live experiences – Cattle and Girl Sweat. Recorded live in front of a crowd at Assembly House (Armley, Leeds) on 1st July 2017 by Ross Halden, the record is a collaboration between one man garage-noise maniac Girl Sweat and double drum noise rock attack Cattle. Side One features ‘Light Assemblage’ a single, twenty-minute semi-improvised piece from Girl Sweat and Cattle, with side two as a live ‘ritual’ performance of two songs ‘Chant for Eternal Power and Glory’ and ‘Ingesting Godliness’ by Girl Sweat’s hypercult alter-ego, nine piece Girl Sweat Pleasure Temple Ritual Band, featuring guest guitar from avant guitarist Junzo Suzuki (Japan).’ Read what we think below.
This record is a visceral, sweaty mess of noise. Cattle are ‘One drums, another one drums, bass, vocals, noise box and sound rod.’ Girl Sweat are ‘Drugged-out noise swirling through the garage spectrum’.
Cattle x Girl Sweat take you from droned out jazz free fall into phasing electronica which slowly bleeds into screaming noise and a mess of sound. They are grinding, nasty and brilliant. It feels like swimming through setting concrete with no hope whatsoever of reaching safety before it sloidifies around you, brutal and hardcore. The recording is spot on. The noise is perfect. If the band came through that twenty minutes with no injuries I would be astounded.
The Girl Sweat Pleasure Temple Ritual Band’s chant about the power of sweat is disturbing enough without any accompaniment but when the music settles down into a grinding sludge drenched crawling beast it becomes monstrous and mesmerising. Slow and steady, it drips with dread and power, spiraling off into the unknown, past the old gods and beyond, disappearing into the madness beyond us. The thrashing and layers just cut off at the end. No respite, no fade out, no cheers, just silence.
Fighting Boredom say that this one is worth hunting down and playing over and over, both sides are essential.
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Cattle have a Bandcamp page and are on Facebook.
Girl Sweat have a Bandcamp page, are on Facebook and Tweet as @girl_sweat.
You can buy the record or download from either Bandcamp page.
All words by Adrian Bloxham
