Named after a line in the T.S. Eliot poem “The Wasteland,” free noise duo A Handful of Dust has been one of the most influential and enigmatic projects to spring from the surprisingly fertile New Zealand experimental culture, along with other luminaries such as Birchville Cat Motel and Antony Milton. The duo consists of two heavyweights of that country's scene and of international experimental music in general: Bruce Russell, known for his work with crucial noise rock trio The Dead C, and Alastair Galbraith, an accomplished solo experimental and folk artist. Here we have a welcomed double-disc reissue of two long, long out-of-print albums released originally in the mid ’90s on Russell's own Corpus Hermeticum label. The discs come packaged in a nice fold-out case, sheltered in individual plastic sleeves to prevent scratching, and are accompanied by an illuminating essay by Marc Masters.
A Handful of Dust is a paradoxical group in many ways. For example, they are devoutly improvisational, yet they almost never perform live sets. Perhaps most interestingly, however, are the ways in which they straddle the divide between noisy, abrasive fracas and mainstream artistic credibility that sometimes today seems unbridgeable. Galbraith is the recipient of a major award from the Arts Foundation of New Zealand for his contributions to the music of that country. Imagine for a moment Aaron Dilloway or Richard Ramirez receiving a National Medal of Arts from the NEA, and I think you'll understand what I'm talking about. These two discs are perfect evidence of this point.
Everything on here is immediately and unapologetically harsh, yet at the same time, there isn't the type of wild excess and spastic aggression offered up by many of their peers. You get the sense that, though improvised, these pieces are progressing — or at least processing. There is work being done somewhere within each track, work with some type of goal in mind, even if that goal is only to meet itself at its own tail. It's often difficult or impossible to follow the directions of the pieces while in their midst. The sounds are constantly mutating, splintering off the main body, disappearing into expanding puddles of drone that underly the tracks, and ultimately reappearing to zip past our heads. Massive prominences of butchered violin and guitar feedback burst inward with varying degrees of recognizability, sometimes allowing us moments of orchestral reverie, and other times eliciting shouted maledictions on the names of Andrea Amati and Antonio Stradivari.
However, at the end of it all, if we take a look back over our shoulders, we can see that the mire has coalesced into a discernible and often gripping pattern. It's a phenomenon analogous to the idea that from inside our galaxy (or any, for that matter) we see essentially chaos -- meaningless bodies positioned meaninglessly in space. Once we turn our eyes back on the same cluster of bodies from the outside, we are confronted with some of the most unquestionably beautiful schemes in the entirety of nature. I don't mean to call these pieces unquestionably beautiful, but there is an awareness of self in them that illuminates this phenomenon of perspective. It's this type of maturity that serves as the link between AHoD's abrasive tendencies and their artistic legitimacy. It's a feature that, for better or worse, you simply are not likely to find in the latest Lambsbread cassette. What A Handful of Dust does is to take the term "accessibility" (often a pejorative one in the experimental world) and, rather than shun the idea, absorb the possibility of thoughtful, open dialogue between the music and even the paradigmatic "average listener." It's a process that has been a constant in their art and is illustrated strongly on these well chosen re-releases.
Disc 1:
1. The Book Nature: Chapter The First
2. Oration On The Dignity Of Man
3. The Expulsion Of The Triumphant Beast
4. The Lullian Art
5. The Book Nature: Chapter The Second
6. The Dark Lantern Of Reason
Disc 2:
1. Fama Fraternitatis
2. God's Love To His People Israel
