“The end is not the end,” Wyszecki recently observed, but rather, the middle. “The middle is the place where all the possibilities are.” One could, in principle, take this further: that is, one could argue that for all intents and purposes, the middle should be a stage. Stage directions, gratuitous noise and disembodied shrieking are among the options open to those who want to make noise music in the age of digital manipulation. But in theory, the middle might not be all that problematic, either.

Louis Wyszecki is a member of that experimental club/concert/recording group known as the Warsaw based unit Chaos Rings. Martin Harnetty is more directly involved. The two met in St Peter's Church, Warsaw, and have recorded together since 2013. Their first collaborative LP was Chaos Rings Vol 1, published in 2013.

This new one is less experimental in approach, but still pulls on the Chaos Ring vocabulary (particularly the spoken one) and adds in a few new ones (see also elsewhere on the LP) that are less noisy, less processed and make abstract, ambient, slightly out of tune. The solo set “In The End Everything Will Be OK” is channeling a more metallic tone, but still has a strong, raw feel. The LP’s second half, “In The Church”, is more abstract, yet still leans on the use of noise as a means of expressing some esoteric message. Again, like its predecessor, it’s without clear cut distinctions, but still sounds very experimental – no straight line direction in the mix, just rumbling, buzzing and grinding.

That said, Chaos Rings Vol 2 is not a less experimental record. The first half of Chaos Rings Vol 5, in which Harnetty played stranded piano and stretched out electronics, was a bit more experimental, but not by much. The second half is more of the same, with lots of voices and electronics, but also moves towards more abstract, moving towards a more brass/featherweight approach. The pulsing wheezes of “Chaos Ring Vol 2” might be dissonant, but their brass ladenness shows through. The extended noises on “Moon Circle” and “Cycle Of Restoration” are quite drifty, even when the brass ladenness is not. Wyszecki is a very musical communicator.