GOVERNMENT ALPHA: Mind-Altering Substance
Release year: 2023
Label: Steinklang Industries
Steinklang’s most recent batch of releases included a couple of pretty major names within the industrial/noise field. Maurizio Bianchi, whose newest album Geni-Z we recently reviewed (here) is of course a significant pioneer within industrial and post-industrial music. Japanese Government Alpha started out their career some 10-15 years later, but as far as important names within noise go, I’d rank the project up pretty high.
Some of the very same remarks could be made about Government Alpha as we made about Maurizio Bianchi: with a discography spanning several decades and numbering in the hundreds, how much more new field within industrial noise is there left to explore? How much more new ground to break? How likely is it to release a discography milestone at this relatively late stage?
“Not very” is the answer to the last of those questions. “Not very much” to the first two. Let’s not kid ourselves: Mind-Altering Substance isn’t an album that will change people’s perception of the long-running Japanese noise unit. It’s not an album that will turn haters into lovers, win over a whole new audience and cement itself as a cornerstone of chaotic, violent noise music.
But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad album or a wasted effort. These things aren’t binary. It’ll probably cater a very predictable menu to all familiar with the project: violent, harsh, chaotic and hectic noise. It won’t surprise, or rise to match the defining works in the discography, at least as far as impact goes, and it probably won’t become anyone’s favourite item in said discography. But it’s still solid, enjoyable – if that word can be used in this context! – and skillfully crafted.
Mind-Altering Substance unleashes upon the listener an unrelenting onslaught of harsh and violent noise. Throw expectations of structure and progression into the trashcan: this is barely controlled, barely constrained audial violence. Vicious feedback pierces the skull, waves of white noise and static wash over the listener, and torrents of low-end rumbles shake the gut. The barrage never really eases off, it just changes form. At the most, it retreats for the fraction of a second only to gather more strength, or go into a brief sideline of weird experimentalism before returning for the killing blow.
Intense and engulfing, Mind-Altering Substance is a very competent piece of noise. Maybe it’s a bit run-of-the-mill in some regards, not very adventurous in the sense that it would bend the limits of the genre (if there are any?) or forward-thinking in that it would try to renew the artist’s expression. But, to reiterate, that doesn’t translate into a bad album.
Maybe this is a bit of a noise aficionado type of album. It’s not one of those genre classics people into weird experimental music will find of interest just because of its pioneering status. It’s also not one of those few albums that are so strong they will cross genre boundaries just for that reason. It’s very, very obviously a “pure” noise album, catering for fans of ear-splitting anti-musical cacophony only. So you pretty much have to be a noisehead to get into this.
But that’s okay. In fact, it’s pretty respectable for an album to be what it is as honestly as Mind-Altering Substance is. It’s a harsh, blaring noise album. And taken as such, it succeeds in doing exactly what it sets out to do. Which is make your brains run out of your ears as a liquefied pulp.
Only Death Is Real 