he didnt – Dark Making
he didnt – Dark Making
Drone Alone Productions
Release date: 03.07.26
Review by Dark Juan
8/10
It is well known by people who know me that I am not uniquely a Metal fan, however many reviews I write for this Heavy Metal website. I am primarily a fan of Industrial music, although Metal and Goth have been massive in my life, and I have an absolutely fucking MASSIVE record collection of Metal albums. But it is what is hiding in the crevices that fascinates me these days. There’s only so many times you can hear songs about murder, drinking, drinking and murder, getting stoned, getting laid or some combination of those four things before you start to get a bit bored. Therefore, Dark Juan is driven to go and explore the wider reaches of musical experience – where guitars are not a primary instrument and where even if they are used, they are chopped up and reassembled in ways that you would not recognise. It is this that led me down the path of Industrial when Metal was in its malaise period in the 90s. It had become moribund and even the likes of Iron Maiden were struggling for identity and relevance; Grunge was the new zeitgeist, and it looked like Metal was going to die. All hail the Nu-Metal!
The good thing about Industrial at that time was that it too was reinventing itself but was further along the road – you still had your Skinny Puppys and your Ministrys and your Front 242s and your Einsturzende Neubatens, but there were pretenders to the throne with the likes of Suicide Commando and Psyclon Nine and Unter Null and many others. Industrial had split itself into the Electronic and Metal sides of itself. Both were amazing, but then a third skein developed – Drone. Music that did not move speedily, music that built endlessly upon itself over extended periods of time and became more an immersion in sound than a mere listening experience. It was a kaleidoscopic experience for Dark Juan as he listened to music being used as aural sculpture. This has led to an abiding love for all things challenging, drawn out and slow-burning. The Platter of Splatter ™ is relieved after playing two previously quite energetic records as I place “Dark Making” upon it.
This album is the work of he didnt (no typos here), and they are a one-person project based in Oxfordshire in the UK, and this album is their fifth full-length release.
You cannot listen to this album with preconceptions. Mainly because it will drive you absolutely potty. This is music you must understand that it is challenging before you try to make sense of it. It is deconstructionism and recombination in musical form. Guitars, bass, and violins are dismembered, sewn back together in new and deeply disturbing shapes and left to duke it out in razor-edged battle arenas. Only the strong survive here. However, there is a deeply idiosyncratic sense of humour operating from he didnt – percussion and some very tasty bass work feed in and out of electronic drones and shock the listener back to attention after they had been lulled into a false sense of security.
This music is UNSAFE. The Health and Safety Executive would go fucking mental if they knew about it. It follows no known genre or pattern. At one moment you might be listening to some amusingly over-produced guitar, then a fucking marimba and then enjoying an interlude which may or may not sound like a Depeche Mode tune had it been recorded in Hell on pain of death. And then there are the nods to Industrial itself, ‘Industrial Nostalgia’ being a prime example of this, all wetly throbbing electronics and clashing metal percussion looping and looping around a barely discernible vocal (for this song an R n B vocal repurposed for some Industrial banging and clattering) and maintaining a machine-like, conveyor belt pace, too fast for humans to keep up with comfortably but too slow to be anything more than “steady progress”. It’s music for factory workers in horrific industries that meld flesh and electronics together, the stench of blood and rot mingling with the sharp tang of ozone and solder. The heat is oppressive and cloying, sweat clinging to augmented workers whose enhancements jitter and spark as they overheat, yet the line never stops. Servitors remove people as they drop from fatigue, machine failure or dehydration and dump them in piles near the door of infirmaries, to be dragged inside by grim-faced apothecaries, to be shot full of stimulants and shoved back into the lines, the never-ending lines of munitions produced with human brain matter as targeting systems and personality-based AI, information forcibly downloaded into synaptic pathways utterly unsuited for the tasks asked of them, with tendon and sinew as fusing mechanisms. Nightmarish sounds emanate from grilles sewn into the faces of supervisors on the line, their hands blades and dripping crimson where they have chastised workers whose output is below quota.
This is how he didnt has stimulated my imagination. Industrial and Drone music always to this to me. Institutionalised and industrialised horror, maschinenklang melded with screams that are painfully human. Dammit. I was cheerful this morning.
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System is conflicted – the music is truly excellent, slow-burning and affecting if you have a certain personality type, but he didnt is only going to find an incredibly limited audience for his deeply idiosyncratic music. Therefore, “Dark Making” is awarded 8/10 for a record I find magical in an obsidian, terrifying way, but one that most people will absolutely pass by.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Bass Tape Loop
02. Not Even Your Corrupt Friends in the Media Could Save You
03. Throbsolete
04. Black Death Tarot
05. Death to Self
06. Dark Making
07. Depressed Mode Interlude
08. TheBeautyTheTragedy
09. Industrial Nostalgia
10. Bass Divs
11. White Suit Hotel
12. Friday Night Opium Cabaret
LINE-UP:
We know not who he didnt is. All we know is that there’s something really not quite right in deepest Oxfordshire right now.
LINKS:
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Dark Juan and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
