GENETIC TRANSMISSION: Offals Of Emotions

Release year: 2004/2023
Label: Die Schöne Blumen Musik Werk/Zoharum

This is where I admit my ignorance. Polish one man project Genetic Transmission and its sole member Tomasz Twardawa were what could be called notables in the Polish industrial and experimental scene, releasing material publicly ever since the mid-90’s up to the mid-2010’s (Twardawa sadly passed away in 2020). And yet I’ve never heard of them.

Well, luckily for me, Zoharum have been re-releasing material from Genetic Transmission’s archives in the aptly named GT Archive Series – a series fully sanctioned by Twardawa himself. Now, I need not languish in the baleful shadow of ignorance any more.

Offals Of Emotions is a five piece album originally from 2004, released – as a lot of Genetic Transmission’s stuff was – on Twardawa’s own Die Schöne Blumen Musik Werk label. It’s a daunting piece of music to say the least. With a running time of almost 70 minutes, extremely abstract expression and equally abstract packaging, this is an album that demands a lot from the listener.

Especially since it’s not any kind of stereotypical noisy industrial. Its nature is far more eclectic, complex and even fragmentary than that. Large parts of this could be called some kind of noise, but there are also elements of musique concrete, electro-acoustic and what have you here. At times, the long and meandering pieces on the album feel like weird collages of sound, where how things are joined don’t necessarily make much sense to the listener.

So there are moments of hissing, pulsating, clicking noise; weird whirrs and drones; field recordings; annoying high-pitched whines; weird, echoed ambience; glitches that sound like a broken, skipping CD; outbursts of noisy chaos; and even some rare occasions of real instrumentation. There’s definitely no shortage of variation on Offals Of Emotions.

But on the flipside, “no shortage of variation” also means that some kind of common thread or coherent structure is often hard to find. Especially on the three long tracks in the middle of the album, ranging between 15 and 22 minutes in running time, the way the tracks evolve, fluctuate and come and go like the ebb and flow of the tide means it’s hard to make head or tails out of them.

I’m sure there are those out there who fall for this kind of stuff head over heels. As for me, personally, not so much. Offals Of Emotions is too abstract on too many levels. I just can’t get a fix on this album, and as such I end up feeling like I’m just listening to layers and segments of sound glued together with a lack of thematic coherence. Offals Of Emotions is a truly grating listen.

Whilst offering very little to the hardcore fan of more conventional noisy electronics, Offals Of Emotions might well offer something for those with a more adventurous and experimental mindset. Getting into this album requires patience and a willingness to exert oneself. I mean, wrapping one’s head around 70 minutes of abstract, experimental and just plain weird music is… well, it’s hard.

I spent a fair share of time trying to do just that. Eventually I came to the conclusion that for me, it isn’t worth it. I just don’t find anything in Offals Of Emotions I’d enjoy enough, or anything that’d challenge me enough in the right ways, to sit through this enervating, grating and infuriating weirdness.

But maybe you’ll be of a different mind?

Visit Genetic Transmission’s official website