KATARRHAKTES is a solo project of London-based visual and sonic artist Malcolm James McLean, and was conceived of and formed in mid-late 2007. Its aims are to explore the unexplained, what we choose to believe in, the boundaries of truth, the meaning of a linear perceptive existence, and other discourses via conceptual pieces of music which range from a confusion of destructive sonic anarchy that subvert the sensibilities of normative auditory arrangements to structured, percussive noise.

A cataract is a dulling of the vision – a physical blockage that deteriorates the way the brain perceives the world, and therefore, left untreated, it can collapse our sense of reality. Notions both of physical and metaphorical ‘blindness’ are being explored.

The word is derived from the Latin ‘cataracta’, referring to obstructions from above such as waterfalls or portcullises, and, more importantly, from the Greek ‘katarassein’, ‘kataraktes’, ‘katarrhaktes’, meaning ‘to strike/dash down’. Echoing this concept, the sound crafted for KATARRHAKTES is dense, noisy, and glitched – a blend of harsh noise and industrial percussion with wavering moments of beauty in the form of orchestral elements and mellow ambience.

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