B!128 The Fortieth Day "Syria: 638 AD (The Complete Recordings)" CD

The Fortieth Day is the duo of Isidro Reyes and Mark Solotroff, both key players in the power-electronics outfit BLOODYMINDED, a unit known for its confrontational live shows. The two also record primitive minimal-synth music, exclusively for Wierd Records [NYC], as A Vague Disquiet. In The Fortieth Day, Reyes and Solotroff utilize guitar, bass, and synth to improvise "sustained, withering blasts of high-pitched noise that are as distinct from one another as spotlights sweeping across the night sky; jackhammer clatter, jet-engine whines, and forlorn keyboard melodies dart in and out of those huge sounds with the grace and impunity of plovers picking a crocodile's teeth" [Bill Meyer, Chicago Reader].

This CD contains the remastered, 61-minute-long version of the complete recordings from the "Syria: 638 AD" sessions. Diophantine Discs previously released an abridged version of these recordings [approximately 36-minutes in length] as a deluxe, white vinyl LP, housed in a black and silver, screen-printed, die-cut sleeve, limited to 300 copies.

For "Syria: 638 AD," the duo took a different approach than on their previous releases, channeling their shifting and disorienting psychedelic and blackened noise into sustained walls of bass-heavy sound, knowing that the material would be pressed into deep vinyl grooves. Not unlike Solotroff's six-hour-long 1996 collaboration with Sshe Retina Stimulants, "Excellent Manipulation of Distorted Tape Death" [re-visited on two related BloodLust! CDs in 2008], which has been re-evaluated by some noise fans as a direct precursor to the militantly static harsh noise walls [HNW] subgenre, the "Syria: 638 AD" sessions saw the duo take full advantage of available bass frequencies, creating monumentally glacial sweeps of low end, highlighted by analog synth sequences and distorted guitar washes that slowly surface in the mix.

Re-mastered by Salvatore Dellaria for the digital platform; professionally duplicated CD, single panel, double-sided insert; black and white artwork; in jewel box with shrinkwrap; released in 2009

Tracklisting:
1. "Part 1" (30:30)
2. "Part 2" (30:33)