At times a cacophony of half-heard voices, misremembered sounds, and grief-wracked shrieking, this record sounds like my worst nightmare.  In fact, listening to it on a broken down tube train somewhere under London, I began to feel that the world was coming to an end.

 

I can’t imagine a more terrifying way to open an album than with the ten minutes of “Evangelista I”.  Dissonant violins and cello are scraped against each other as Carla pleads with bloody conviction for love and/or death.  Unrecognisable objects are rapped as if some otherwordly game of table tennis, umpired by a 1930s preacher.  Following this with a funereally paced cover of the traditional Steal Away (“I ain’t got long to stay here”) provides surprising respite before “How To survive Being Hit By Lightning” takes us back into that dreamlike sound-world, with the sky cracking and crackling with static.  It took me a few listens to even notice the submerged bass throbbing like a pulse in your  head, which keeps you from sleep or invades your dreams, assuming you can tell the difference.  The sepulchral, claustrophobic “Baby That’s The Creeps” locks you in and drains your oxygen supply for kicks.  The Low cover, “Pissing”, is a thing of beauty and is as straightforward as the album gets, although even that is smeared with feedback and strings scraping to a crescendo they never reach.

The influence of Carla’s new label Constellation is obvious on the cellos of the opener, the muffled piano of “Inside Sleeps”, and the tape loop experiments such as those on “Nels’ Box” (Nels Cline I assume).  These combine to bring about the disconcerting radio stuck between stations effect into which Godspeed records fall between tracks, heightening the awesome atmospheric conditions of Evangelista, which leave you sprawled on the floor having fallen from bed (or from your tube carriage seat), gasping for breath, confused and sick, with a vague recollection of unspeakable violation.