Manufactura - Precognitive Dissonance

It took me a bit to get into the new Manufactura CD, Precognitive Dissonance. It's a violent release, full of a range of intensive beats and disturbing imagery. While I am a fan of disturbing, I'm not necessarily a fan of disturbing violence, especially when the violence is directed towards women.

This is what I found to be the initial stumbling block, as I found Precognitive Dissonance to be tainted by what I thought was an unhealthy attitude towards women: the song titles, lyrics and samples portray a theme of women as victims -- dominated, abused and tortured by men.

I wondered if KarloZ.M, the man behind Manufactura, had issues with women or if he was merely projecting a character into his music? It seemed more like the latter, as when I met him, when he came to play the [tik] co:man:d [sic] concert in August of 2003, he seemed really easy going and friendly… and I got no sense of the gender specific hostility I originally saw in Precognitive Dissonance.

After much thought, I re-evaluated my attitudes towards Precognitive Dissonance. Yes, it's a disturbing and violent album, but that is what it is trying to be. It's very successful in its goal, so over-the-top that it succeeds in rattling the chains, in disturbing one who is not easily disturbed. It sets out to disturb you with the violence, not gleefully rejoice in it, and in that the point of it all falls into place. It shows this violence as ugly and brutal as it is.

The music itself ranges from very dark ambient, evil soundscapes to beat driven rhythmic Industrial. Very much like his first release Regression, Manufactura doesn't wish to be pinned down, musically, to one sub-genre, or one specific sound. Although the music varies, there is nevertheless a flow to it.

There is an attempt to broaden Manufactura's appeal with a dance friendly beat combined with the addition of vocals to some of the tracks, and a remix by heavy EBMer Aghast View. It is obvious that a push has been made, both musically and promotionally, to draw in some of the EBM crowd, whose opinions and prejudices have monopolized the dance floors of industrial clubs, however I think that the core of Manufactura's material may be too extreme for them.

Squid @ Feb 2004