ORANUR III "THE THIRD REPORT"

'Oranur III' is the creepiest album I own. Even more so than 'Current 93's' "Nature Unveiled". Turned up loud, it sounds like zombies clawing out of graveyards. Almost purely electronic at source it's a swirling, throbbing and groaning recording that is unlike any other I've heard.

]Oranur III' is based on the theories of Wilhelm Reich with his outsider beliefs in 'Orgone' technology, UFO's and 'Cloudbusting' machines. This deep droning menace of an album sounds like all of the aforementioned condensed into a 40 minute prototype exercise in terror.

Comparisons could be made with bands such as 'Throbbing Gristle', 'Kluster' and 'Lustmord'. However, there's something deeply unsettling and undeniably disturbing about this particular recording. It's unrelenting in its oppressiveness.

The opener 'Oranur III' has a very eerie metallic drone which becomes very intense through waves of slowly pulsing keyboards. You can just imagine the creature from John Carpenter's 'The thing' slowly creeping up behind your back as you fiddle about with a torch unable to figure out if the batteries are working.

'Scary Bejeesus' is the only way to describe 'Dark Eyes'. A sliding, slushy drone of weird chords is played under effected spoken vocals which recite alien abduction encounters. In itself this should be laughable, but this and the following track '"L5' paint a very spooky and real death-like scenario. Gruesome sludgy, whining keyboards grate and grind creating in a swirling death effect leaving the listener very unnerved.

The HP Lovecraft inspired 'Beyond the Wall of Sleep' evolves into a more ethereal sound, like an old Victorian haunted mansion. If you listen carefully enough you can almost hear voices from past millennia in the distorted keyboard chords.

'You Just Got Tired' has more alien abduction female screams going on but is delivered with a swirling, electronic semblance of a tune, which runs through my mind for hours after completion. Beautiful... but ugly.

This is probably my most listened to album of all time since purchasing it in '95. 'Oranur III' is only suited to listeners of the more extreme end of prog. It is without a drum, guitar, bass, or tuneful vocal.

On the whole, this will be abject torture to most prog listeners. For me it's a thing of beauty that has not been matched in it's genre since it's release..