Dark star

As The Haxan Cloak, his nom de guerre, Bobby Krlic makes music that could pulverise your bones at a distance. He’s always in search of the loudest amp, the deepest bass, the most viscera-quivering sonic effects; on social media, he’s often posting in delight about new technology he’s found, or soundchecks that have started to demolish the venue where he’ll be playing.

On two records – 2011’s self-titled debut and 2013’s follow-up, Excavation – incoherent voices call across an unpassable chasm, or surge from an oubliette. The beats, which are vast, have something of the tenor of hell’s gates slamming closed behind you. You feel something vast and unknowable lurching closer, beats falling like gigantic footsteps, noise seems to have overflowed from some subterranean otherwhere, surging up like black water.

Beats falling like gigantic footsteps, noise seems to have overflowed from some subterranean otherwhere, surging up like black water

There’s dynamism in there, too, however, not just aural assault. On “The Mirror Reflecting”, the standout of his second record Excavation (the title, and the cover art – a noose swinging in dark space, awaiting a neck to close around – are an indicator of the contents), a sweep of gleaming arpeggiated bleeps glides over the bone-crushing low-end; when it swoops in, it’s as thrilling as when the beat dropping out and kicking back in on any great techno track. “The Fall”, from his self-titled first record, features voices that swell up in infernal chorus, rising upward in a sort of demented release. And lest this all seem impossibly grim, I maintain that Krlic has a wry sense of humour about the music he’s making; no-one unversed in schlock calls a song “Burning Torches of Despair”.

After six minutes, as the sound gradually subsides, in the manner of something preparing to redouble its assault, you start to wonder whether it’s only been a few seconds, or several hours

Over four years, I’ve seen Krlic play ever bigger venues – from an early support slot for Zola Jesus at the sadly missed CAMP Basement in East London back in 2010, to a headline show this week at Brooklyn’s Masonic Temple – less sinister a place than one might hope, yet aptly weird nonetheless. (The venue has been holding the occasional live show – including such acts as Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Throbbing Gristle, between whose respective big-screen doominess and searing industrial thump The Haxan Cloak neatly sits – since 2007, arranged by an organisation unimprovably named Masonic Boom.) The Haxan Cloak has grown at the same pace as the venues have got bigger; each new larger space seems like a challenge: how claustrophobic can I make this big hall? It almosy brings to mind comedian Stewart Lee’s gag about stand-up shows that aren’t aimed at the public but at other comedians; you feel that Krlic, in performance, is seeking to outshine (if that’s the word for music so unremittingly dark) other artists working in similar modes. In terms of how loud a gig can get while still being classified as entertainment, My Bloody Valentine is the obvious comparison, but while their shows infamously culminate in a 15-minute wave of sheer noise that forces even the most ardent fan to stuff fingers into ears and stagger away, The Haxan Cloak starts loud – in Brooklyn, with the hopeless echoing vocal cries of “Miste” – and only gets louder. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a gig at which an audience has kept so cautiously far from the crash barriers in front of a stage; behind these, on a low podium, Krlic – lightly bearded, moderately tattooed, appealingly shy-seeming – was drawing forth from seemingly modest amounts of electronic equipment these monolithic slabs of sound. Space warps around you; time starts to unravel. After six minutes, as the sound gradually subsides, in the manner of something preparing to redouble its assault, you start to wonder whether it’s only been a few seconds, or several hours.

There was a popular urban myth going round when I was growing up, about the existence of a certain low frequency sound which would cause anyone who heard it to lose control of their bowel

There was a popular urban myth going round when I was growing up, about the existence of a certain low frequency sound – its deployment ascribed variously to the American military and to Finnish industrial/electronic noise duo Pan Sonic, depending on whether it was the internet or the NME spinning the story – which would cause anyone who heard it to lose control of their bowels. (It was never explained why a band, even as uncompromising as Pan Sonic, might want to humiliate a paying audience en masse; the phrase that comes to mind concerns what you shouldn’t do on your own doorstep.) In any case, it’s clear that such a tone doesn’t exist, because if it did, we’d all be staggering away from Haxan Cloak gigs in a state of even greater mortification. As it is, when the end comes, the sound almost undetectably starting to subside, you’re left with ears ringing, leg muscles weakened, and your mind feeling wiped clean. A Haxan Cloak show is a form of weird therapy. C