Naked City- Leng Tch'e[1992]

Leng Tch'e, or the "slow slicing" was a particularly gruesome form of Chinese torture, also known as "death by 1000 cuts". The victim was slowly sliced to pieces, and sometimes given opium to prolong the duration of the torture, which upon imperial request, could last up to three days.

The namesake isn't lost here, as Naked City takes their Grindcore-meets-free-jazz(and god knows what else) style into a distinctly sludgy direction(think Melvins circa Lysol). It's long, slow, and terrifying. The single track here begins with washes of chittering feedback, which, over the course of the first four minutes, slowly build into huge, crashing waves of distorted, writhing bass. The drums join in, sounding almost tribal and ritualistic, swinging between backbeats and extended fills to fill the huge, dark void of this album.

The barbaric riffage continues until about 15 minutes in, when a recognizable beat emerges, and Yamataka Eye(of Boredoms fame) starts shrieking. On early Boredoms releases, Eye's spastic, gibbering vocals lent to the cartoon-gone-weird aesthetics, but here, they complement the instrumentals in such a way that you can really pick up on the whole "torture" aesthetic. From there out, it just gets more and more miserable(that's a good thing). Eye consistently comes up with horrifying new screams, barks, and whimpers, and Zorn himself conjures up some equally devilish sax squeals.

The band constantly shifts from frenzied faster sections(reminiscent of "traditional" Naked City) and slow, crushing sections. Usually, it's just the drums that speed up, and the mountains of bass and distortion keep their glacial pace behind them. The last two minutes or so switch back into the droning feedback from the beginning, but have an oddly positive tinge to them, like most of Earth's "Phase 3". It's sort of an "I may be dead and shredded, but at least it's over" feeling. This is an amazing release from Naked City, and a very interesting look at the nexus of sludge and drone. You should also read more about the torture itself. It was only officially abolished in 1905.