Alphaville

Yasutoshi Yoshida, recording as Government Alpha for over twenty-five years, is one of the most eloquent artists in harsh noise; that eloquence, though, builds out of an ability to maintain intensity to the point of exhaustion for the listener. Simply put, a Government Alpha album can feel like a test. Alphaville doesn’t really let up, either, but it has some particularly enticing moments of variation – see the vocal snippets that run through “Clairaudient Isabelle,” which duke it out with a pulsating swoop of sizzling electronics; or the primeval buzz that launches the closing “Enantiodromia,” quickly subsumed under crushing coal-black textures.