Josh Peterson - Collected Voice, Text and Tape Work
adhuman adh001 CD
If Amphetamine Sulphate did audiobooks then I’m sure that they would sound like Josh Peterson’s audio works. Steering a path somewhere between the uneasy vibe of early Whitehouse releases, Basinski like decay and with heavy doses of manipulated Power Electronic vocals for delivery, his lo-fi, grainy, Dictaphone sound worlds are peopled with those who have fallen between the cracks of society; the lost souls, the victims of sexual abuse, the dispossessed, the lonely, the mentally ill, those that flit between casual sexual relationships of either sex, itinerant workers, drug addicts, those tied to menial work and reliant on benefits, the nameless, the sad, the hopeless. Here we have someone capturing the quotidian despair of those on the margins of life and all set against a backdrop of utter grimness.
Josh Peterson began life as a sound artist using spoken word and sound collage in his compositions. He’d make up cassette tapes of his work which he passed around friends. Four of these tapes, all recorded between 2018 - 2020 are what make up this double CD release from Duncan Harrison’s new label adhuman. Several of his books have also been published by Amphetamine Sulphate and though I’ve not read any of them I’m guessing they’re of the stripe that has you showering afterwards.
Peterson’s deliberate, mostly slurred narration is a largactil induced drawl, a suitably drugged blur that is at one with his subject matter. The constant background of lo-fi hum, emptiness and general decomposition is littered with TV news reports, cheesy lounge jazz, static, shop counter talk, seriously out of tune acoustic guitars, footsteps, machinery, rain, cassette tape abuse, children playing, church bells ...
On ‘(report & recital)’ theres the track ‘Questionnaire’ that begins with a Whitehouse like high pitched feedback whistle and this:
‘Are you often tired and listless for no reason?
Would you describe yourself as moody?
Would you take unfamiliar drugs …?
Do you think insurance schemes are a waste of time?
Did you tend to dislike your parents?
Do you sometimes tease animals?
He was also seen walking back and forth at the side of a highway near the motel ….’
Peterson’s voice then disappears in to an unintelligible sea of distortion and is eventually replaced by a sombre piano melody.
‘Dry, Itching Sensation’ sounds like it was recorded in a roofless factory where the rain comes down and a warbling operatic falsetto emerges from a shellac disc. Its one of the few tracks where Peterson’s voice is left untouched and where he even whispers and for this reason sounds even stranger and more sinister. Its like being whispered to by someone about to slit your throat.
Whether his characters are real or imagined I know not. I suspect Peterson may be taking inspiration from real life, newspaper reports of missing persons, pharmaceutical information sheets especially in relation to side effects, canteens at break times, clock out machines at clocking out time. I know nothing about Peterson except that he’s American and that he’s trawling some heavy duty seas. His is a world that some would like to pretend doesn’t exist but is very real. Thats what makes these works so disturbing. Real or imagined they’re some of the most unsettling I’ve ever come across.
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