ADARCAH IANQU: PIGGERY

Adarcah Ianqu's pugnacious Piggery is another mechanized plunge by the ultra-busy composer. Like his other submissions (as covered by Bizarrechats), he chisels a crammed, gear-shafted, audio picture of existence's bleakest states, and through the erudite mud he shovels, one comes to understand one's lot in life, all through thirteen restricted but stimulating tracks. 

Most entries invoke a sense of defeat, as in "sleepy" (a coarse lullaby); "fool" (the spurt of regret that follows an embarrassing fall); "never" (a won't-rise-and-shine snub); "tired" (a regurgitated reply to getting knocked down one too many times); "dirt" (the long-term pen in which one must wallow); and "doom" (ever-after fate for never hitting that high, coveted mark). 

These references of feeling and choice can be listened to in succession to create an ongoing woe, which like a Sir Elton sad song can comfort as much as puncture. In other words, Ianqu's tracks assure that one is not alone, even if there's never a chance for companionship.

To counteract these existential wisps, Ianqu interjects the following: "london" (a place not so perfect, but better than what one's got); "a pipe" (a grand plan for that no-chance flight); "dreamwear" (a coat of aspiration without encouragement); and "zeon" (a hogged vision of paradise etched deep within the sequestered earth). 

"Feedback", on the third hand, is a confrontational response and a commitment to the derisive status quo (a leaping between despair and death); while "the incendiary" burns like f****** hell (for ain't life just that?); and "slut", a last-grasp, no-win pleasure zone one gets after the insufferable day is closed). 

Yeah, it sounds pretty morose and is (as are all Ianqu's creations to some degree or another), but this album is nuanced in a way that distinguishes itself from his broader, pessimistic submissions. It chops and stabs in small, splashy portions, culminating in a way that's Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets Three On a Meathook tugged through infinite loops, grazing hard against one's brain long after the album has concluded. And ironically, it's something one wants to keep rolling no matter the hurt, because again, Ianqu's compositions instigate understanding. For any ass-kicked life, isn't that all one wants?

And Piggery is definitely what one wants, even if one doesn't know it yet. Give it a bitter snort or better still, an ominous oink at 

https://adarcahiancu.bandcamp.com/album/piggery?fbclid=IwAR0IoeYuWJQZlXgG51hiwDIMRoSrdvWTAD1jdRXXTm4IvntXLkT8ZeqSCzo

IANQU'S MULTIFIRE (FLEE FOR THE LIGHT)

Bizarrechats visitors know that Adarcah Ianqu's audio ventures present deep (self) discovery. With his newest, Multifire, listeners get even more than they've bargained for, and for that, they should be grateful. This may be Ianqu's most daring exploration to date, for it yanks one's frayed spirit from the darkness and plants it smack dab into the light: a miraculous, behavioral maneuver if ever there was one.   

What initiates the journey is rudimentary but profound, commencing with the aptly labeled [a]. Here a Lovecraftian landscape takes hold. The chords are gentle yet ferocious, depending on how one's mind flips them, but no matter which side one chooses, the results are as stark as they are surreal. 

For [b], the alteration ascends higher, with Ianqu's sounds rubbing along like mad crickets. The composer's atmosphere is fraught with joy, danger, irritation, and in the midst of the mix, a grave yearning to find one's home, but where (God, damn it all to hell!) did it go?

Maybe it resides in [c], but this epic sequel is specialized. Its enclosed roar is that of a behemoth, a New Age Kong, set in a jungle unlike any found before, carved of fetid passages and spiraling slopes, with an austere hallucination at every forbidden turn. 

For [d], one becomes chained like Leia to Hutt. Ianqu drives this confining fact home with each linking flick, burning one's courage to a darkened, demonic crisp.

As this somber track fades, [ea] takes its place, striking one's heart with a million, Psycho-ed stabs. It later invokes Fritz's fateful torch to the taunted Frankenstein Monster. Will the pain ever end? E-ouch!

It's, indeed, hard to keep one's head above the anguishing water, and [bc] makes no compromises on that point. It, in fact, may be Multifire's most provocative track, for as much as it progresses, it looks back to Hell's foundation, where flames and pitchforks skip and prance in harried, timeworn pursuit. 

But at the end of every dim tunnel, there beams a light, as long as one believes in the possibility of flight. In its gradual, persistent way, [v190] shoves the thematic thread through the eye of the impossible needle or better yet, acts as a rescuing file dug from out a faux cake. All one needs do is cut away the bars, and from there, Ianqu's sounds create that perfect, inimitable, thank-goodness break. 

By the time [ccb] enters one's (y)ears, the voyage from out the Outer Realm grows ever near. Ianqu's notes allude to a yellow light so bright that it devours the sun. This staggering, 43-miute track speaks of salvation won through toil, through the intrinsic idea that all bad things must pass, and they do, though for all of [ccb]'s magnanimous magnitude, one may not wish Multifire to do so. For the sake of creating purgation in and out of the unknown, Ianqu's brainchild demands constant savor. 

Enter Multifire's subconscious tiers at

https://adarcahiancu.bandcamp.com/album/multifire?fbclid=IwAR2ka9NaxSY7ioxEtsuSSZqxtcXkiJNzlvPZU_ts5LK1RIcNdLKTUdoXdGs

IANQU'S ASSUMPTIONS: INEBRIATED TRACKS

Adarcah Ianqu's Assumptions is Ray Milland's Lost Weekend and Dick Van Dyke's Morning After rolled into one. It's an album that assumes suffering, its consequential addictions and the desperate means to snap from an opiate's shackles. 

It starts with a long "second" drilling into one's head, a simulated salvation that only shoves one deeper into Hell's heart. It also turns one's "second" chance into an album all unto itself, exploring the sort of erratic toot that one wishes to end, but gets nurtured all the same, buzzing along with and without refrain. 

But "drunk {the first bottle}" is the real kicker. It guzzles down and sloshes the cerebral throat, blurring the vision and wobbling the knees. Its sounds are cool and defiant (a nod to junkie pride), but as it progresses, it becomes an unceasing, diabolical transmission, whizzing like a mad scientist's machinery, creating something big and bad.

With "drunk {the last drop}", the intoxication has struck its satanic summit. It sounds like a wistful whirlybird sputtering ever onward, but going nowhere. It mocks. It taunts. And for better or worse, it lives. 

"Try" is the feature-length reply, filled with tingles and chills. In Ianqu's notes, the need to untangle, to clear one's doubts becomes the obsessive pursuit. It feels like going to church, even though one is forever damned, but even so, one must try--try and try again!

Perhaps "tomorrow" will be better. Perhaps, one will see the light, even become anointed by it, cleansed and free of one's poisonous prison. A robotic melody creaks through this track, even more epic than those that preceded it, cranking like a vampire's fingers, daring not to melt, to fade away, cutting into the rays, demanding unmitigated hope. Yes, tomorrow will be brighter. Tomorrow one will be cured. It's all one can presume or else what's the point?  

Ianqu's Assumptions lays it all on the line, never apologizing, never resigning, and because of it, it's the best treatment plan one can embrace, so if one is snared by the Devil's mix, partake the moody maestro's audio allusion as quick as one can: 

https://adarcahiancu.bandcamp.com/album/assumptions?fbclid=IwAR30GoO4X1azoWi2-cr_X1SRNElydO_jzSQaL6iCaenlU-PrT3viomQBBDc

IANQU'S TEPHRA: PIECES & PASSAGES

Adarcah Ianqu's Tephra is an explosion of audio notions: what's good, bad and for better or worse, (un)acceptable in life, depending on where the pieces fall after one's conception. 

The opening set, "fume" and "saliva", represents the finer fabric of existence. Their complementing sounds are soft but impending, budding like flowers, even if devoid of beauty. In Ianqu's subtle scratches, there lies his trademark ambivalence, and in such, the blossoming passages to elation and/or angst (peace and/or war), depending on what direction one steps (i.e. listens). 

In one particular track, Ianqu combines the extremes in a much tighter way. For "port Said", he paints pleasantries and tribulations all within a single, echoing brushstroke. The feel here is carnival-like, though it never reaches a calliope's fruition. That's because the ascension remains rough-geared, but no less determined to reach a high note. That it stumbles is its identifiable splendor.  

Much like "port Said", "botanic" and "ex" boast the grains of roustabout struggle, with the former implying elevation through percussive notes and through the latter's outdoorsy stride, a need to divorce all discordant connection. (In other words, one may embrace or avert what one dislikes.) 

"Cockroaches vinyl" is a further extrapolation of this stressed effect, but its underbelly becomes more foreboding, introducing a series of profane murmurs and grooves, but despite the irreverence, it demands the imagination to chip away all derisive chatter.

"Told" and "buzzer 1996 {edit}" are pensive replies to the vinyl's blunt impressions, teetering on survivalist acceptance. The tracks feel like the music a warrior might choose before engaging battle: rueful on the surface, but fiery at the core. (And the resulting emotion is no doubt what many feel before starting any given work day.) 

"Apolis sirens" and "jazz detune" conclude the album with encircling rumination, each gliding like a gradual waltz or unrepentant farewell. These selections acknowledge all that has come and gone in a life that was sometimes unpleasant but even so, well spent. 

Tephra's pieces and passages are frank and factual, emotional and practical, dispersing a musical vantage as only the prolific Ianqu can germinate. 

Listen and appreciate at 

https://adarkashianckoox.bandcamp.com/?fbclid=IwAR3vxXlwfEJJB74brOQMXlpIhCgnffPWp45aVnkJJFDaVCDVnr9jy3_e3qs

IANQU'S APOSTROPHY: A MILLIIONFACESMAN AUDIO OPUS

Adarcah Ianqu fills my world (my congenital theater, that is) with special sounds. Sometimes those sounds are sad and sometimes happy. Either way, they have come to distinguish who I am, where I've been and where I'm going. 

To commence 2022, Ianqu (in this instance performing as Millionfacesman) has given me (and all industrial-music lovers) Apostrophy, an album that possesses more than a few of my favorite (emotional) things, from both the dark and light sides of the life. 

Its first track, "H" is (in an aesthetic nutshell) eerie: the sort of morphing anthem that might accompany Ishiro Honda's The H-Man, or any number of jinxed individuals who seek something grand but get so much more (or less) at the end of their physical, altered states. 

In much the same manner, our Millionfacesman paints a tangent to "H'"s foundation through "underworld". In its musical juxtaposing, it triggers images of erudite monsters straight from Outer Limits, or perhaps from those tentacled, Lovecratfian annals of (any)one's mind. 

"Cigarettes" and "purple fanatic" carry on the tradition, though here the capricious chords are funneled down a different drain, one in which the transformation comes through sheer choice. They're Jekyll-desiring-Hyde, knowing the consequences of their consuming formulas, but digesting them in spite of such. 

The consequences of one's poisons are represented in "stolen miracle", where one's nourishing pursuits are abandoned along a rough-tinged track, and "left hand", where one's journey clashes with better judgment, riding the roads of witless risk. 

On an optimistic flip, Ianqu grants listeners areas of pastoral escape: "golden fields", a gentle creation that conceives a special place to hide, and "November 1999", an electronic memory to mark a more significant year, with a hint of something grand almost near, but never quite attained. (That's okay, since it's the quest and not the lost prize that awards fulfillment.) 

The album's final (titular) track, "Apostrophy", captures it all, cobbling the above ingredients with top-chef delight. It acts as both a prologue and epilogue, jigging upon the same welcoming/farewell stint: the pinnacle of cognition, molded from the various doubts and hopes that define it. 

I'm grateful for Apostrophy's existence. It's an album that comprehends everyday complexities; and in a expanse of eternal confusion, it's pleasing to embrace an artist who empathizes to such a compassionate, if not uncanny degree.

https://adarcaheancu.bandcamp.com/album/apostrophy

IANQU'S TURKISH LOVE

Turkish Love is Adarcah Ianqu's search-and-find epic: a vessel for any relationship's questions and answers, shoved and nurtured within an amorous, cogwheel cocoon. 

It begins with a "question", which whistles into the night with entangled distress and fright. (She loves me, she loves me not, don't you know?) The track performs as a means to rock one's heart, as does its adoring companion piece, "question section beta", which secures an even deeper air of smitten doubt, weeping and whining in its berating bliss, but perhaps "powder (sixth question)" redefines the maddening dynamic best. All the same, this inquisitive trio ends up soothed by the "doctor"; though even with his fee deposited, the desultory search for love still swings back to oneself. 

Higher-power pondering also permeates, as epitomized by "zeus ST" and "zeus Qxix", which thunder through a god's jet engine, whirring through the ethereal clouds like the misdirected V'ger, consuming to the max, but yearning for a head-over-heels thump beyond its materialistic breadth. 

This set is contrasted by a softer (sadder) one, per "she ktir" and "bir allah", which move as catatonic caresses for at least a couple, well inserted turns, but they also cause one to wander without aim, accentuating the album's unrequited quest. 

With no unequivocal directive at hand, risk interrupts, which is why "adultery" and "bomb" hit so hard: comeuppances for every iniquitous affair (un)done. Neither punctuates, however, quite like "the first axe", an unqualified conclusion to a relationship that never quite was, but so be it. Remember, it's the exploration, not the outcome, that counts.

 

Turkish Love is like a long, strange, missed kiss: all that one might anticipate from the eccentric Ianqu and for any inconsolable listener, a whole lot more:  

https://adarcaheancu.bandcamp.com/album/turkish-love?fbclid=IwAR2EoC6Z6L4dtOFNj_xegLNcJ-lRhBNsRRN5dKSUlV0xBmM7oxnY79iyNtw