I’ve never really been a big fan of David Thrussell. Sure, the guy has amassed a large, worldwide following through his Snog and Black Lung projects and even, to a limited degree, with his ambient forays with Soma. But his political musings have always seemed a little too obvious and barely clever while his Industrial leanings always seemed slight and hardly worthy of attention.

Yeah. Not much of a fan. I’ve only reviewed one of his albums as Snog and I’m not sure I’d be willing to review any more than that.

Although the new Black Lung album, due out in June, intrigues me. You can hear a great deal of it over at the Black Lung MySpace and the album is being given a mirror release by Tympanik Audio (most of Thrussell’s work is put out by Ant-Zen).

March 2008, in one of the most unusual events in contemporary music history, notable electronic/alternative musician David Thrussell is commissioned by DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — a funding body of the U.S Government and the Pentagon) to produce a recording that reflects the ideals and reality of Vision 2020, a futuristic military strategy program that first saw the light of day in May of 2000.

“The design was twofold,” says DARPA media liaison Thomas Steele, “to deliver to the men and women working in some of the Pentagon’s most challenging fields an inspiring soundtrack to their daily working lives, but also to present to the general public information and a view hitherto unconsidered of some of the lesser known branches of our military.”

That’s right. This Far Left activist has dropped all the social commentary to work with the military (for over a year!) weaving field recordings as well as the sounds of sensitive hardware and technology into the final product. “One of the greatest thrills for me,” said Thrussell, “was setting up a full P.A. inside one of the ICBM silos at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California to run and record the final mix on the title track Full Spectrum Dominance – room ambiance and all!” He has also been allowed to Incorporate actual recordings of top secret military activities in the upper ionosphere generated from the HAARP base in Gakona, Alaska. Yet this doesn’t seem hypocritical in his eyes.

“No, not at all. I see my role first as a musical journalist – to present the information – there’s plenty of time for editorializing later. And…I’ve even invented my own sub-genre to describe the album’s unique, crunchy, downbeat sound; Grave-step.

Head on over and give a listen to some of this material because it’s actually quite good. And you can look for the album, Full Spectrum Dominance, at some point next month via Tympanik Audio.