Virgin Mind

Five years after the last fullength outing "Oedipus dethroned", those awaiting the Swedish action group Irm's new work are rewarded. In the meantime, Erik Jarl has been busy with his solo-project, having released sombre droning recordings on Segerhuva, Annihilvs and Malignant to name but a few. On the other side Martin Bladh has focussed on performance art, contemporary moviemaking, and also some solo recordings. Both becoming legends on their own, and together, through the unity of Irm - becoming cult! This double CD set shows a maturation without borders, from the most organic ambiences to building walls of disintegrating metalscrapings, from shrieking dynamic textures to soft eerie metabolism. This is a physical theatre, the shell of body and mind has cracked and the grating lyrics blossoms out fully. A truly epic work, undoubtedly rich, rising sounds echo and emerges slowly, changing temperature. Managing finally to capture the emotional experience of their liveperformances into their studio material. A soulmoving violent beauty and a vicious cathartic organic experience! Seldom does a group in this genre of music so brutally define a massive 113 minutes of the living artists dream.

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IRM has already existed for over 10 years and are recognized as one of the most interesting Industrial bands around. This time Martin Bladh and Erik Jarl are joined by a third band member Mikael Oretoft on bass-guitarr. This new work by IRM is a deeper delving into the psyche of the self inflictor – the core of inner regions violently exposed. Comprised by four tracks, each exactly 15 minutes in length we are thrown into a vortex of feedback, cymbaldrones, heavy bass-strumming, nightmarish pianotinkles and irreproachable synthwork. Demanding your attention all the way through – certainly not an easy listening experience – describing the course of events is impossible. It is again a mature and intricate work of incisive delicacies and theatrical ambiences. The sense of detail throughout is immense and the editing perfect. The clinical heaviness of earlier works are now transformed into a pure harsh, static soundwave which are most often cut off by another, slower, softer but in ways a more painful and dynamic one. The lyrics here are deeper cuts into personal matters. A man altering between life and death - a calculating and disillusive thinker and recluse who has lost the grip of reality, or perhaps found another? The strife for self-control turned into sick dedication, waging war on himself to receive recognition – the end comes nearer. Seldom have we heard a strange work like this which turns both lyrics and music into a full whole – stay away if deeper encounters with the human mind offends. The creative artwork was made by the renouned Swedish artist Stefan Danielsson, who also made the frontcover artwork for Whitehouse album "Racket"