Big Paul Ferguson
Remote Viewing – Reboot
Cleopatra Records
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On a surface level, Remote Viewing β Reboot sounds like what youβd expect to hear if the drummer from English post-punk/industrial metal band Killing Joke made an album. If you know anything about βBig Paulβ Ferguson, you know the drumming will be rhythmically complex without drawing attention to the fact and characteristically sparing in the use of snares and cymbals. You know it will be impeccably recorded and produced to provide space for all other sonic elements to combine into some unexpected, exquisite noise.
Where Big Paulβs work diverges from Killing Jokeβs aesthetic is in his spoken-word vocals and the songsβ foundational genesis. Most evolve from layered, rhythmic loops serving as frameworks for Big Paulβs acerbic social commentary, delivered sing-speak, like a less-gravelly Tricky who enunciates. On βHungry Ghosts,β Big Paul lyrically slips in and out of the present tense, the EQ compresses like heβs passing through a tunnel, and then he’s describing the same details from memory. βRebootβ unfolds with a 4/4 disco-tech scaffold gradually built up with electronic embellishments, chugging guitar, and Big Paulβs poetry.
On βThe Great Motivatorβ Big Paul enumerates the beatitudes of Fear in a conversational deadpan against a surge of pounding toms and ebbing guitar swells before ultimately pronouncing, βFear does not exist.β Were it not for the groove set by the tribal thunder of drums, it might pass for a much noisier, less arty Art of Noise. The album could use a touch of their humorβsome cracks in the watertight seriousnessβwhether through satire, caricature, or a willful lapse in studio precision.
Remote Viewing β Reboot is the wide release of Big Paulβs 2018 debut EP augmented with a new track and six remixes. While we didnβt need two remixes each for βI Am Warβ and βThe Great Motivator,β both versions of the former are handled by Killing Joke bassist Martin Glover aka Youth, who drenches each in dub and adds his own groovy bass runs. The new βWill to Surviveβ points the way to his 2021 full-length, Virtual Control, in which he sings the vocals and features more prominent guitar work from Mark Gemini Thwaite/MGT (Peter Murphy, The Mission), whose collaboration as co-writer, co-producer, and mixer is indispensable. It sits up nicely against βZarzal,β a stately electro-dub lament sung by Ferguson, an oasis of regenerative sound in which to survive the earthβs demise.
ArtistΒ Links
SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: BIG PAUL FERGUSON – REMOTE VIEWING – REBOOT
Charles T. Stokes