Factory Floor
'Factory Floor'
[DFA]
One of the best things about the success of Factory Floor, which has warranted so much attention for their latest album, is the trio’s stylistic choices are shining a the light on the rich, influential history of industrial music from the 80s and 90s. Trent Reznor returned to Nine Inch Nails this year, one of the most polished and accessible examples of what can be chiseled out of unhinged noise. However, Factory Floor definitely take their queue more from the abrasive, avant-garde side of the genre, encapsulated by early trailbalzers like Cabaret Voltaire.
The London-based act released their first in a series of particularly well-received singles and EPs in 2008, and their reputation has equally been drawn from the strength of their throbbing live show. Here they’ve tried to mold their celebrated approach into a full-length album, with their manifesto tied to extracting the maximum creative possibilities out of the use of repetition. It is an ambitious undertaking.
The template is introduced early on in Here Again, with a softly spoken acid line that fades in and out, before swelling to an endless repeat, which becomes the central pillar of the song. Around this, Factory Floor manage to build a wall of sound that heaves and sighs, taking on its own sense of organic life, revealing itself to be more and more dense as you delve into it.
Nik Colk Void’s processed vocals are yanked to far enough of an emotional distance to melt seamlessly into the other machines, while the percussion and drumming from Gabriel Gurnsey is amazingly flowing and finely tuned. His technical contribution to the trio’s objectives can’t be understated. From a surface, outer-sheen perspective, Factory Floor is wonderfully realised, with the different noisy elements drawing in to harmoniously fall in sync with each other.
It’s not hard to imagine how this throbbing repetition would translate into a mesmerising live show. In the context of a full-length album though, it’s not enough to sustain itself over the duration of its 53 minutes. There’s a genuine polished, shiny cohesiveness to the soundscapes they’ve built, but in the end, this is all that Factory Floor have got. The exterior is wonderfully realised, but the core of the album is a disappointing hollow husk.
To look at it another way; the stylistic consistency on Factory Floor is amazing, and one of the drawbacks of an act being so warmly embraced is that expectations will be unreasonably high for their first shot at an LP. Conceptually, they’ve aimed high, and while Factory Floor might have an eye to the past, new ground has still been broken. The living, breathing world they’ve conjured will make for a solid foundation to do some properly spectacular work.
Listen to Factory Floor on Pulse Radio.