[mn020]
Gulag
The Great Leap Forward

1. Let a Hundred Flowers Blossom
2. Zhongguo Youth [ full-length mp3 ]
3. Last Stand of the Guomindang [ mp3 excerpt ]
4. Cultural Revolution
5. The Great Leap Forward [ mp3 excerpt ]
6. The Chaiman Smiles

Total time: 21:51 min
Format: 3"CD-R, with full-color artwork, 50 copies
Release date: 2003
Sold out

The second installment of the Gulag 3" CD-R's moves to the People's Republic of China and provides a new dose of percussive instrumentation and proletarian labor. From the reverberating chants of "Zhongguo Youth" to the monolithic rhythms of the "Great Leap Forward" (possibly the largest death toll for a famine in history), these 21 minutes dwell on the legacies of the "Permanent Revolution".

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Judas Kiss (by AM)

Small is beautiful. Size doesn't matter. As a man blessed with being hung like a hamster these important phrases have become my personal mantra. To show that these phrases can relate to other things rather than just the size of a man's penis here is a compact and pocket sized 3 inch cd release by Gulag. Over 5 tracks Gulag, who work within Experimental / Ambient soundscapes, have produced a mini masterpiece worthy of your attention. There's a certain hardness to their sound that in places remind me of Test Department bashing and pounding away at steel drums with metal objects. In others there's a wonderful feel of early style Lustmord crossed with TGVT and Mynox Layah type ambience. 'March of the Pioneers' is perfection personified and should be sought out by lovers of all things strange and quirky. In keeping with my mantra I'm going to end this review... ...now.

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Industrial.org (by Moron, August 09, 2003)

Gulag leaves a lot of space for the sounds to move around in. It has an offsetting mix of skin tight room reverb with longer ping pong delays and halls on specific sounds which results in a very immediate and close vibe despite the apparent vastness of the environment. Here on "The Great Leap Forward" the tempo has been raised to waist level so that rhythmic hits come along regularly like the slats of a railway under lurching foot and the shifting of operations from the Eastern Block to China definitely has not diminished the impact at all.

The 6 tracks on offer (5 originals plus an excerpt from a communist marching song) take up just shy of 22 minutes and move at a steady pace through the red landscape. Initially movements are jerkier and less directed, as if the lines of communication have been severed and individuals are tackling the situation with their own hearts and minds. The transition from loose coalition to tightly controlled formations is an interesting one and the mix of clangorous percussion with swarthy analog synthesizer swells works as well here as on previous Gulag material.

Unlike the previous Gulag effort, this outing mostly stays out of the bitter cold, replacing it with the sweaty dampness of physical labour. The title track for instance rotates around like the collective shoulders of a work party shovelling coal at gunpoint into the white hot fires of some massive foundry. It's suddenly huge, like a camera has been pulled back and what was previously only visible as vague movement through iron slats is suddenly seen as a raging machine of cultural upheaval. For some reason I also get a slight Residents feel on some pieces, "Cultured Revolution" for example is somewhere between "Hello Skinny" and the slower synth pieces from the original (and best) "Terminator" movie though there is a subtle digital distortion basted over specific sounds that just plain fucking rips contemporary through my Behringer Truths and definitely creeps up the atmosphere like red glowing eyes above a sinister grin.

I like this release a lot (as I do most of Tirdad's various musical incarnations). It displays a pure industrial authenticity that is no doubt a reflection of the sincerity with which it was created and as a source of heavy and evocative atmosphere it's hard not to recommend.

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Toronto Industrial Kollective (by Vizgig, October 2003)

Interestingly enough and this is a truly awful pun that I apologize for, but I just can't resist, Gulag has taken a great leap forward musically. I am so sorry for that now I jump into the realm of pretentious music critic trying to sound clever and using titles as ways to attack good music, although I do feel the album title is important as it leaves clues to the musical intention, but I don't want to trivialize it by using inane puns. Okay enough of that sorry again for leaving the topic of the CD. Gulag compels me as they use communist imagery, yet their intentions remain mysterious and vague. Obviously they oppose the purges etc., but I can't figure out why they wish to remind us; is it to create further contempt of the regime, or to remind us of the horrors now that the cold war is past? Or is it to remind us that communism is still valid, but must have the intolerance weeded out? Is it pro or anticommunist? Anyway, as you have no doubt gathered, with this album Gulag tackles communist China and Maoism. Again they continue the use of atmospheric ambience, with an increased feeling more oppression and brooding. Pushing the envelope of dark ambient. Yet retaining some beat friendly tracks, while each track definitely creates a sonic tapestry; a musical story. Truly getting behind the mystique of purges and oppression. And serving as a great reminder not to let our system collapse into a totalitarian order (a brink we are hanging dangerously close to). So take heart in the deep drones and soft percussion to stay fast against democratic decay and not to jump to early conclusions about certain groups. Most interesting on Leap Forward is the track with samples from Chinese speeches, featuring yelling and communist music, it works a treat. So I feel Gulag has leapt forward from March of The Pioneers to increasingly administer their attempts to musically reflect certain historical regimes. With Leap Forward distinctly creating a feeling of communist China, that is at least what I imagine communist China to feel like.

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TCP Eclectic Radio (July 01, 2004)

It's striking how relevant it is for anything painted with the "labour"-laced revolutionary ideas of "Red" socialist imagery is to Industrial music in theme as well as soundwise.

Calling this two excellent metal percussion releases "experimental" is an understatement - this is what industrial music can be imagined to convincingly sound like: admist the cold battering of steel and the alienation that follow closely behind each track.

I saw the hand numbered markings on my copies being respectively 36 and 39, both of which are limited to 50 copies. It amazes me how a work of such calibre had escaped the attention anyone in these endeavours, how can something like this not even sell 50 copies???

Perhaps it's because they are CD-Rs and 3" at that (nobody really takes that kind of format seriously), or it could be the political content a.k.a. the general anti-commie/china sentiments (just admit it prick), i don't know, but it would be a pity for whatever reasons, since these discs are well worth the time of anyone who is willing to give some ear.

Gulag is fronted by the guy behind Mechanoise Labs: Tirdad C.K.

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