Over the past two weeks, contractors have been working next door, inside and out. This disc has been a godsend. Given the choice of hiring a different sort of contractor (tempting) and using Sujo to drown out the noise, I’ve chosen the safer, louder option.
One person’s noise is another person’s music, and vice versa. It’s not noise that bothers people; it’s noise that’s beyond their control. The same song that one dances to in a club becomes annoying when one hears it blasting from a car outside the house in the middle of the night. Diaspora, despite its apocalyptic leanings, its distorted chords, its crunch and purge, sounds more like music than noise: glorious, impenetrable walls of sound, grounded by solid structure and discernible melodies. It may be the bastard child of Tim Hecker and Merzbow, but its opposing influences provide it with an aura of uncompromising power.
Sujo (Ryan Huber) is three-for-three on his recent outings, Eilat (reviewed here), Terran (whose concluding track turns out to have been the shape of things to come) and now Diaspora. Huber has been honing his presentation, sloughing off the imperfections while retaining a rough sheen. As loud as these sounds are, they have purpose: the progressing scales of “Famir”, that sound like post-rock gone bad; the rocketing drones of the title track, which expand like cluster bombs until all else is sublimated; the squelch and drum of “Landing”, which advances like an occupying army. While the title could easily refer to an actual diaspora, it also describes a diaspora of sound, a scattering of notes, waves, and expectations. The beauty of this noise is that it has form and flow: the sound of chaos on a leash. (Richard Allen)
a closer listen 