- Those who work in the world of noise can, often, get away with utilising very small -if very loud- selections of sound and making these limited palettes do for a career’s worth of eardrum destruction. Ironically, Xandra Metcalfe’s Uboa embraces a much broader array of musical choices, which may occasionally make her seem like she’s exhausted everything she could possibly have to say. 

The reasonably prolific belter spent last year running the gamut between blistering walls of screaming and distorted white noise over to slowly pulverising but surprisingly sweet post-rock-ish post-punk that sounded like the whole of Swans being reproduced by just one person; and more than a few things in-between. Despite having planned albums and label releases, Metcalfe seems governed by her own terrifying muses, resulting in more or less random, EP length outbursts. The breadth of her creativity was astonishing, the first time I heard it, but every now and then she had a tendency to repeat her journey, like someone whirling round in a fugue state. It’s a little unfair, given how much ground she covered, but I did find myself wondering, is this all of it then? 

The answer, you’ll be relieved -or perhaps newly unnerved- to discover, is no. Uboa’s latest, little offering, embraces synthesisers in a way that she’s only touched upon in the past. It’s quite the contrast: giant, soaring sheets of sweetly synthetic sound are smashed up against walls of distortion. Similarly, Metcalfe indulges some almost dolefully pretty vocals that aren’t a million miles away from the likes of Perfume Genius or another Australian, Death Club 7, before unleashing her trademark screaming, which -if you haven’t heard it- could send banshees fleeing in fright.

In moving on from the ground that’s been previously covered, The Flesh Of The World crashes into territory that’s been visited by another maverick of the noise world, Dominick Fernow and his extremely prolific nom-de-guerre, Prurient. If you’re familiar with the Prurient back-catalogue, there’s a lot of commonality even if Fernow’s preoccupations tend to fall, more often, into the world of techno than does Uboa’s synth-pop horror.

Xandra Metcalfe is a woman who has a lot to say on a lot of very personal issues, including mental illness, sexuality and body dysmorphia, but in the past I’ve felt a little frustrated, trying to decipher just what meaning is buried in her rending screams. There are no such problems this time round! The whole EP comes with a lyric sheet, up on Bandcamp, and it proves Metcalfe to be thoughtful and erudite, not to mention utterly uncompromising and more than a little troubling in her expression. 

Drawing on the “grandiose delusions” of Nineteenth Century German judge and schizophrenic Daniel Paul Schreber, she poses the question “where does the body end?” and answers it with a sprawling a psychological journey and a panorama, where the human and the divine interpenetrate in an uneasy, violent, self-hating, uncertain and roiling whole. The aural accompaniment fits perfectly: bloody viscera and terrible emotion are rendered in brutal noise while the ‘divine rays’ of cosmic light which join Metcalfe to the unforgiving figure of God are painted in gales of syrupy synth. 

Once again, Uboa has proven to be an extremely innovative voice in the world of noise. She consistently visits new creative worlds in her music, even if they’re burning down around her. Toying with themes of self-harm and vomiting (self) hatred; for all that The Flesh Of The World is deeply troubling, there’s a certain symmetry to it. Why shouldn’t a world that allows for the kind of experience Xandra Metcalfe has endured get to look upon its god and say ‘isn’t this what you intended, isn’t this what life is?’ Or as Metcalfe puts it, letting her pain bleed into the foundations of human experience, “I am everyone / I am everything.” In the end there are no adequate answers and I suppose that is part of the reason Uboa exists.

- Chris Cobcroft.