NAVICON TORTURE TECHNOLOGIES
Industrial / Experimental / Ambient
from beyond the schism
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About
Navicon Torture Technologies saw its first official release in August of 1997, in the form of `AMALGAM: A Collection of War Poems.' AMALGAM was a split cd featuring lo-fi ambient noise and power electronics from NTT along with Negative Eight, a genre-bending electronic side project of the grind/industrial band Negativehate, whose members happened to live just around the corner from NTT frontman Lee Bartow (who would come to be known as `Leech'). As an outlet for this release, and with the idea of more to come, Leech founded the Annihilvs label. Not long after, a series of very limited cassettes followed. After that, NTT slowly gained more exposure.
The `Insanity' cassette on flighty label LSD Organisation was released shortly before the "Analog Artifacts" CD-r on Annihilvs, until a deal with Malignant Records introduced NTT to the world at large with the "Scenes from the Next Millennium" CD in 2000. Navicon Torture Technologies has birthed more than 11 cassettes, 7 full-length CDs, over 45 CD-R releases, and more than a dozen remixes and compilation appearances. NTT has released CDs on Blade Records (Italy), Cranial Fracture Recordings (Australia), Eibon Records (Italy), Immanence Records (UK), Malignant Records (US) and NCC Records (US). Limited CD-Rs by NTT have been released by Stridulum Recordings (Italy), PACRec/Troniks (US).
Navicon Torture Technologies has appeared on compilations and remix albums released by Ant-Zen, BFI Unit, Chondritic Sound, DTA Records, Hive Records, Horch!, Invasion Wreck Chords, L'Ame Electrique, Megahertz, Objective/Subjective, Pre Feed, Spectre, Word Made Flesh, and many more. NTT has collaborated with, remixed, or been remixed by several respected names in the underground scene, including The Biped Project, Cenotype, Converter, Coph Nia, Herbst9, I Burn, Irm, Klangstabil, Lefthandeddecision, Negativehate, Pneumatic Detach, SKM-ETR, Synapscape, Wilt, Salt, Still Life Decay, and Terrorfakt.
The name Navicon Torture Technologies has come to be recognized in the industrial music scene, forging a sound all its own, combining hypnotic loops and dark atmosphere that would accompany the more traditional Power Electronics sound. The NTT sound also features female vocal manipulation, and a unique delivery of crushing Rhythmic Noise, again proving Leech's ability to take any form of extreme electronics and give it his signature twist. Leech would come to call his art Power Romance, a term abstract enough to encapsulate the various concepts, styles, and sound that encompass NTT, yet descriptive enough to differentiate himself from his influences.
Throughout the history of music, the misguided quest for love has been a prevailing theme. NTT is the story of that quest turned into a nightmare. It is the tale of hope, failure, joy, anger, revenge, pity, worship, destruction, the tale of an amalgamated beast, man and god looking for love in all the wrong places. With the ten-year anniversary of the project now at hand, Navicon Torture Technologies truly has come to the end of an era. After 10 years of heart-rending screams from a man disgusted by himself and the world around him, the tide must now turn.
Like an unrevenged victim, Navicon Torture Technologies will slowly slip beneath the waves, weighted down by the guilt of her murderer, she will rest at the bottom of an un-named lake. Gone, but never forgotten, her spirit will continue to haunt us from time to time as we remember her glance, her smell, the taste of her skin. It will be a slow mourning process, but the world will move forward in its inconsequential way, and blooms will be brighter in the spring.
The chronicles of Power Romance will reach an end with the VTERVS CD (NCC Records), THE GOSPELS OF THE GASH 2XCD (Malignant Records), and BOTTOMFEEDER CASSETTE (NIL BY MOUTH). As a last gasp, NTT will contribute tracks to a few compilations, and a collaborative release with Cenotype entitled THE LAST EUROPEAN/THE RAZOR EATER will see the light of day later this year. NTT performed for the last time in November 2007, alongside EDGEY, TERRORFAKT, TONIKOM, and CENOTYPE.
The end of NTT - while bittersweet for some - opens the doorway to new projects and a broader musical scope for both Leech and Annihilvs.
- Text by Heathen Panzer with Leech.
