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Nonlinear.System.Theory

Fourier's Outrage

Written by: PP on 07/10/2008 14:30:18

Experimental is a light word to use when describing Nonlinear.System.Theory and their album "Fourier's Outrage". Mixing together Nintendo sounds, dark industrial rock, tonnes of fucked up sound effects and a good deal of trance/electro rhythms, chances are that you haven't ever heard quite anything like this band before. That's why the album will intrigue and dazzle you on first listens, but as is often the case with music as strange as this, when the novelty wears off, the only valuable thing left is witnessing the shock-effect your friends get when you play this record for them.

Consider this, for instance. Track three is called "The Hunger Of Luigi" and consists only of weird fade in/fade out distortion, before the familiar "press start button" sound from Super Mario Brothers kicks off the familiar theme song to the same game on "Luigi Ate The Damon", but only for a few seconds, before the band dives head first into a strangely psychedelic realm of distortion, weird keyboard effects that make HORSE The Band sound normal, and haunted singing. Three minutes in the song, the frantic music transforms into a wall of feedback and distortion on the background, whilst someone plays Super Mario Brothers complete with jumping sounds, going down the green pipes to the underground levels (with appropriate music again). Then all of a sudden the level ends, and a female voice sings "LUIGI!" on repeat for a few times, and the instruments return from feedback into an industrial format once again...and without any warning, the music pauses in the end to the familiar sound of Super Mario dying - and that's the end of the song.

Sounds weird? I don't blame you, 'cause I'm sitting here thinking "WTF?" while listening to this. While the rest of the songs don't have Nintendo sounds as such, they're still as fucking weird, if not weirder, like the Pendulum meets Enter Shikari song "Nonlinear Outrage" demonstrates (before it transforms into 1600s traditional Italian music half way through - think "O Solo Mio"!?). But like I said in the introduction, the novelty wears off pretty quickly, and the only thing remaining is the strangeness factor of it all. You wouldn't ever put this on for casual listening, for instance. Consequently, I can't award the album high marks either, even if it's among the strangest things I've ever heard on record.

Download: Nonlinear Outrage, Luigi Ate Damon, Standalone
For the fans of: Slagsmålsklubben, live electronics
Listen: Myspace

Release date 2008
Subsound Records