As R/S, Peter Rehberg and Marcus Schmickler have provided Erstwhile's first recorded foray into the more volatile end of the noise spectrum. While the 2006 ErstQuake festival in New York played host to some extreme bands (including Jazkamer, Aaron Dilloway and Lasse Marhaug), ONE (SNOW MUD RAIN) is the label's first recorded document of high-volume abstraction.

And as such, it's kind of a baby step into the hailstorm. It's a tricky disc that works in different ways, a wave or a particle depending on how you look at it. While the recording level is quite high - it is in fact a loud record - and the sounds-per-second ratio is much higher than on many Erstwhile discs, there are rarely moments that scream out for volume. It kicks ass when it's rattling ribs, but apart from the occasional air-raid siren, it works just as naturally at low volumes as well.

As with much of Erstwhile's catalog, there is something pristine about the playing as well: it's ordered, tidy. This may have more to do with the players than the label's demands. While this is the first project together, both Rehberg (who also records under the name "Pita" and co-founded the label Mego) and Schmickler (who has worked with Thomas Lehn and Keith Rowe and also records as "Pluramon") show a strong sense of control in their other projects as well. There's a strong sense of structure, even if it's an intuitive one born as they played. Various passages throb with electronic pulse, dissipate into windblown terrain, even at moments leak bits of musicality. There might be more density in these 58 minutes than if you played the rest of the label's catalog concurrently, but it still makes sense - intrinsically as well as the context of a label with a strong identity.