I was captivated by Minotaur's
Obsession as soon as I set eyes
on the cover. On it, a hallucinatory collage of disembodied eyes float
around an attractive young woman clad only in a bra and thong, her back
to the viewer, casting a beguiling, heavy-lidded glance over her
shoulder. This vaguely nightmarish night-scene evolves into something
much darker as you open the album and find the high contrast images of
intricate rope bondage and fetishistic modeling, juxtaposed with an
older glamour shot of an unknown woman. This all ties together with the
thematic influence of Anais Nin's 1977 collection
Delta Of Venus; this classic piece of literary erotica provides the raw material for the lyrics on
Obsession,
as well as the seething eroticized energy that oozes across the ten
tracks. This is the first full length album from Minotaur, the duo of
James Keeler (Wilt, Hedorah) and George Proctor (Mutant Ape, Sump), and
it's nowhere near as excruciating as you might think it would be. What
these guys have created here is one of the creepiest power electronics
albums I've heard, taking scenes of debauched sex, virulent lust, and
controlled violence and setting them to a backdrop of pounding metallic
rhythms, tumescent black synthesizer drones that feel as if they are
eating right through your stereo speakers, and muted noise walls. The
electronics are thick, malevolent, oppressive, more musical than pure
noise. It's the vocals that really add that extra dose of intoxicating
nastiness to
Obsessions pervasive haze of black lust, morphing
from deep, pitch-shifted mutterings, to heavily-delayed whispers that
crawl deep under your skin, to militant barking demanding submission.
You could compare this to some of the newer Prurient material as well as
the pitch-black electronics of Theologian, but Minotaur's own
Philosophie dans le boudoir smolders with a dark carnal violence that is uniquely it's own. A fucking
phenomenal album, highly recommended to anyone into forward-thinking power electronics. Limited to two hundred copies.
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