prurient / carlos casas

Vezdekhod

**Edition of 500** Von archives, where have you been all our lives?! Part of our introduction to this fine Italian boutique imprint is this awesome documentary-cum-sound experiment pairing Carlos Casas' footage and field recordings made in the classic Russian Vezdekhod tank with a deconstructed soundtrack by Dominick Fernow aka Prurient (aka Vatican Shadow). The all-terrain Vezdekhod tank is the primary mode of transport for most folk in Siberia. Carlos Casas captured a seemingly bum-bruising journey in one of these things somewhere in the tundra of Chukotka Region, Northeastern Siberia, Russian Federation (N 66º 37' 916, W 172º 40' 353) in Sept, 2006. Endlessly bleak panoramas unfold, taking us across near-infinite roads to cross wide rivers and fields of Moose both in daylight and the dark, all set to an unyielding, visceral soundtrack by Prurient; turning the rattles of the engine, the welded chassis and its rock-crushing track into brittle, ascetic drones and excoriating power noise rhythms which perfectly accentuate, comment on and reflect the stoic functionalism of the vehicle itself. Brilliant.