Prayer Rope – Synodus Horrenda

7.14.22 by Jacob DeRaadt

Synodus Horrenda on No Rent Records is my first exposure to this project by Lexi C.M.K Turner. A sound that I heard a lot from tape trading friends in the ’00s is on display here: amplifiers mic’d up and feeding back in unruly tormented fashion. Sustained intensity approaching a meeting of Mathausen Orchestra and mid-period Ramleh guitar feedback, although I don’t feel here a guitar sound as much as a harsh noise rotten tone. Some tapes just get you from the beginning and this one did it for me. Bear witness to a real monolithic crushing sound that builds patiently and never relents in intensity for sustained periods of time, fuzz baths for days of filthy feedbacking, bludgeoning tones. 

Harsh harsh harsh noise, in every sense of the term. Play loud on headphones while drunk late at night. Almost starts to drone for a second before relapsing back into shrieking fuzz swells that are intoxicating in rich texture. Side B’s beginning is a bass tone buried beneath stereo fucking ugly crashing demented filth that wouldn’t be out of place on a David Gilden tape. In your face and intense shit that doesn’t let you have any breathing room. It fills up all the space without becoming a constant wall, rather things are always shifting under the surface in dimensional relationship in the muck. This tape has won me back over to a style of harsh noise I thought I’d grown tired of. If you like brash ugly burly harsh noise that’s unrelenting this will be right up your alley. Sold out already. Wah!!!!