Jim Haynes rusts things. So says his biographical statement, and I believe him, fully. Throttle & Calibration is a study in rust, decay, moldering, disintegration – sound sources run through the procedural meat grinder to emerge from the other end disfigured, unrecognizable compositions. Taking cues from Nurse with Wound among others, Haynes’s animated corpses of sonics clang and scrape, build and disappear, all within terrifying atonal parameters. Spoken words appear here and there, adding to the disquiet. Throttle & Calibration is part of the Crossover series wherein he decamped to Mooste, Estonia, to comb the Crossover archive for source material for these pieces. Dynamics shift, thrust upon us and ripped from our consciousness at equal measure, caustic, abrasive, violent, and unrelenting (except when, as I’ve mentioned, the sound is ripped from us – then it sort of relents. But it really doesn’t want to!). I’m freaked out just listening to it. Doesn’t help that I’m in the very graveyard at midnight where all those grisly murders took place in the past few years. Grisly murders of lone Walkman wearers just out for a stroll to clear their heads at the darkest hours. Guys, if you don’t hear from me in a couple days, come looking for me, OK? Jim Haynes would. He’d at least want to record my dying gasps for posterity, maybe for a new MOMA installation. After calling an ambulance of course.
Jim Haynes
Helen Scarsdale
--Ryan Masteller
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