Rasalasad - Thismorphia [Thisco 075 Promo]

Sitting in our P.O. box only recently was "Thismorphia", the most recent album release by Portoguese producer Fernando Cerqueira created under his artistic moniker Rasalasad. Released via the Thisco imprint the longplay piece is comprised of a total of eleven tracks, most of which following the conceptual approach of embedding, remixing and recycling sound sources and Spoken Word bits taken from a bunch of other artists including the likes of Von Magnet, Antonym, Merzbow, irr.app and various others. Coming from this very special approach the album starts on a fragile Dark Ambient tip incorporating tentative whispered Spoken Word lyrics by Jarboe in "Value", makes a transition into haunting, yet abruptly ending Ambient territories with "Astellar" before fully unfolding cinematic, slowly evolving beatless beauty in "This" using and abusing Spoken Word bits appearing courtesy of Wildshores which, referring to the way of vocal processing only, kinda evoke memories of Jam & Spoon's well-trippy Ambient classic "Hermaphrodite" released back in 1993 whilst another variation of "This", this time including lyrics by Von Magnet, drifts away into more floating, slightly balearic realms. Furthermore we see "Spectre" managing to fuse scenic strings and bits of digital distortion to a well-calming effect, "Axx" brings in sound sources taken from Japanese Noize legend and Rasalasad-collaborator Merzbow, causing a ruminant, possibly even ecclesiastic soundclash of devotional nature whilst the Rasalasad solo piece "Night Walk" seems to be influenced by Southeast Asian meditations, modular synthesis as well as Spoken Word performances. Following up is "Silence" featuring reprocessed words taken from John Zerzan's text of the same name which are embedded in a tense, danger inducing  sonic surrounding, "Deriva" caters the first beats of the album and comes across as a fusion of Noize and Illbient influenced by producers like Muslimgauze or Mutamassik and "Stellar" introduces a colder, more sci-fi-reminiscing feel which could be well taken off a classic 70s score of the genre. Finally we're experiencing "Simulacra" remixed by Shhh... which concludes the album in a quite fascinating way, juxtaposing classical Ambient / Chill Out structures and layers of Industrial Noize to a great effect. Defo a good one to check out, this.

Album artwork on Instagram!