Caroline K - Now Wait For Last Year LP

Label: Blackest Ever Black

Our Review:

In 1979, Nigel Ayers and Caroline K began recording as Nocturnal Emissions, a project then that was spurned by the nascent Industrial Culture of Throbbing Gristle, Whitehouse, and SPK. Their early recordings – Tissue Of Lies and Drowning In A Sea Of Bliss especially – are classic recordings of information overload aesthetics through abrasive drum machines, electronic noise, tape psychosis, and aggressive sequencing. At the same time, the two began Sterile Records as a means to put out their own recordings and those of likeminded malcontents (i.e. Lustmord, MB, Controlled Bleeding, Konstruktivits, etc.). By the early '90s, Caroline left Nocturnal Emissions to Ayers and disappeared from the public eye; but she did manage one solo record in Now Wait For Last Year.

By the time that Caroline recorded this album, Nocturnal Emissions had grown disenchanted with Industrial Culture, especially all of the blood and horror from the requisite medical imagery that went hand in hand with the punishing electronics. At the same time, Sterile Records had transformed into Earthly Delights promoting an agenda of post-Eno driftscaping. Now Wait For Last Year was actually the first LP to land on Earthly Delights, standing as a fantastic and under appreciated swath of industrially tainted ambience. Sodden loops of melancholic dronings spool as the album-side long "The Happening World" – a 20 minute mantra of murky haze reminiscent of some of the Zoviet France recordings from around the same time period (Mohnomische, in particular), furthered along by a lurching set of mechanical rhythms buried deep in the background. The B-side opens with nocturne synthesized from medieval chants and percussion not unlike, the earliest Dead Can Dance or the Fairlight driven works of Coil. The dirge-paced synth number "Chearth" is more in keeping with John Carpenter score (although certainly less bombastic).