Split by FLESHLICKER/Zhao Ziyi

"The obvious kinship is that Zhao Ziyi and Fleshlicker – from Beijing, China and Dorset, UK respectively – are purveyors of a visceral and volatile form of expression, rooted in the spasms (both voluntary and involuntary) of a living body. Yet this split also forefronts a mutual interest in the relationship between interiors and exteriors, and the transfer of energy from the former to the latter. What happens when tiny synaptic jolts are amplified until they accrue a cataclysmic weight?

The bulk of Zhao Ziyi’s half was made by pinching unheaded XLR cables and trying not to move, with the recording sourced both directly from the mixer (internal) and from an external capture of the room. Where the internal sounds like the spurts of a busted garden sprinkler, the external resembles a roman candle with 480 volts sent through it. The signal swerves between a serene continuous hiss, stammered plosives and projectile chunks of pure electricity, gifting the signal tactility and a sense of danger simply by introducing it to a physical space. “Plays Seijiro Murayama” is a truncated recording of a workshop conducted by Murayama in Beijing back in February. Participants were asked to cross the room slowly and stomp their foot “based on momentary impulses during the process”, thus paralleling Zhao Ziyi’s own process of hyper-amplifying the miniature.

Fleshlicker’s half is divided into two distinct parts. The first is a degraded capture of a YouTube video in which someone explains the practical benefits of their favourite knives, with talk of bodily incisions slipped amidst rundowns of blade cleaning routines, all delivered with the anti-dramatic flatness of a late-night shopping channel. The second part is a prolonged and violent sonification of the knife itself, created by drawing and scraping the blade across the element of a contact mic. We move from a conceptual evocation of the knife to an overwhelming render of its very material, turning the banality of instruction into a terrifying act of practice. The private is made public, and the innards are exposed for all to see."

Text by Jack Chuter

UK-based label & mastering service

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