I Watched You Die - Throat Slashings [Breaching Static - 2011]I Watched You Die is the new HNW project from Dubuque Iowa based Alex Nowacki- whose most known for his creative yet hard hitting HNW project Boar, but also has a few other projects focusing on different facets of Walled noise like Centuries Behind A Gate which focuses in on story based unmoving HNW, and Phantom Rib which focuses in on taut almost rhythmic based HNW. This new project sees Nowacki focus in on thick ‘n’ heavy low-end rumble ‘n’ batter based HNW, and this cdr is the projects first release. The CDR features just two untitled tracks & both tracks are as nastily low-end & battering as each other. The first track comes in at the 37.17 mark, and this ‘wall’ finds Nowacki unfolding a taut, tense & pressing yet detailed mass of juddering ‘n’ seared machine like bass lined purring noise texturing- this main element is warped & pitted with focused & smaller static homed tones that take on tightly knitted & juddering/jittering tonalities. This first ‘wall’ is both very tightly & enclosing, yet moorish & highly appealing in it’s feel, and I really find myself getting very wrapped up in the bass bound & low-end wonder of it all. Track two is the shorter of the two tracks at 20.36 mark, and this tracks ‘wall’ is once again of the tense, taut & bass thread variety. It’s built around a more simple & straight forward low-end juddering than the first track, and this judder is ribbed by smaller & slightly blow-out yet focused jitterings. Again this track is fairly appealing & moorish in it’s feel, though I felt it rather lacked the tension of the first track, so as a result I prefer track one out of the two tracks here. Never the less track two offers an ok ‘wall’, that at times almost sound like it could strip down to AHNW territory yet never does. The cdr packaging is bit of a departure from Breaching Static labels usual long oversized white cd folder sleve. This cdr comes in a black crape paper cd slip sleeve that features a pasted on macabre yet arty crude line drawing artwork of a women in her underwear lying on a bed with her throat slashed. And standing over the women is a male figure who seems to have a blade growing out of his hand. Theres also a single white paper insert that just features crude yet effective drawings of two knifes & the labels website address. So if you enjoy taut, tense & evolving low-end bass bound HNW you get a kick out of both tracks on “Throat Slashings”. This is yet another rewarding walled noise project from Nowacki, & I very much look forward to hearing what he does with it next. Roger Batty
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