���So far, I've really dug everything that I've picked up from the new Blossming Noise sub-label Tested Souls, which appears to be focusing more on a mix of ritualistic drone music and power electronics compared to the experimental noise that label boss (and To Live And Shave In L.A. member) Graham Moore has pursued through his main imprint. His solo project Exploring Therapeutic Encounter comes from a similar field of dark, minimal electro-creep, from which Moore casts a strange spell using tapes voice and electronic noise, emitting repetitious, pulsating electronics that invoke a similar trance state as that Cursory La Sorci�re 7" that also came out on Tested Souls. There's also more of that vague occult vibe running though this, the six tracks centered around a minimal but mesmeric arrangement of queasy looped bass, eerie keening synthesizer melodies and somnambulant vocals that are so distorted and encrusted in staticky fuzz that Moore's voice ends up being completely unintelligible.

��� Of course, that only adds to the oddness of Exploring Therapeutic Encounter's weirdly hypnotic brand of narco-power electronics, the tracks moving from more subdued clinical rumblings of tracks like "Body Feeling" to the utterly malevolent squealing horror of "Physicalism". Statciky pulses, squealing rhythmic electronics and tinny metallic rhythms all pervade this recording , and there are brief moments that seem to sputter with an almost Mille Plateaux-informed approach to glitchy noise. It's also possessed with hypnotically repeating blasts of insectile noise and a disturbing pitch-black vibe on the harsher pieces, moments that can get pretty goddamn abrasive, but he tends to offset that sonic horror with simple, brooding synth melodies that creep across the likes of "In An Ideal", moments that can occasionally resemble an early 80's John Carpenter composition being performed by Hole In The Heart-era Ramleh. As with other Tested Souls releases, this features an attractive minimal design, the tape housed in a black arigato-style case with abstract morbid artwork printed in metallic gold ink, issued in a limited edition of one hundred copies.