Auditor - When I Was A Little Kid I Was Just Like Anyone Els [Altar Of Waste - 2014] | Auditor is the HNW/doom/Industrial project of Chicago, Illinois based Brandon Elkins. This two disc released on Altar of Waste is themed around the crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer. And it offers up two forty minute plus slices of oppressive, chilling & intense walled noise that flirts with a death ambient industrial feel. Package wise this release rather departs from the normal Altar Of Waste packing- so instead of having the standard clear DVD case/ double side artwork . The two discs are attached to a dual side printed heavy-stock card which features a portrait photographs, with the eyes crossed out by the releases title. On one side there’s a picture of Dahmer in his orange prison overalls, and on the other side is a picture of Adam Walsh smiling wearing a baseball cap. Walsh was a six year old boy who disappeared from Sears Department Store in Hollywood, in July 1981- his decapitated head was recovered from the Vero Beach canal in Florida a month later. It was originally thought that Ottis Toole( partner of serial Killer Henry Lee Lucas), committed the crime, but in 2007 evidence came to light placing Jeffery Dahmer at the scene of Walsh's disappearance. The CDr's are attached to either side of the card, and mimics the centre of said pictures- the whole things housed inside a clear plastic bag, and comes in an edition of 20 hand-numbered copies. All told it’s quite a neat & distinctive bit of package that nicely fits the releases the theme & feel.
Both tracks here are apparently built utilize elements of a lengthy interview with Mr Dahmer, but also I can make out elements of muffled layers of noise(which at times almost become rhythmic), morbid ambience, buried industrial textures, thin grey textural sweeps, and various other unsettling texturing. Each of the ‘walls’ unfolds as a very oppressive & dense map of texture- you can clearly hear that there are layers of voices in here, but you can never really make out what there say or who they are. And mixed in with these you get the already mentioned other elements- all together these create a really tangible feeling of hopelessness, ominous unsettlement, and fear. Each ‘wall’ remains murky & ill-defined through-out, but from time to time you get slight more recognisable shifts in the dense sonic fog of sound. But for all their murky & foggy setting, each track mangers to remain interesting & rewarding through-out, as Elkins subtle shifts & snakes though the mass of textures. All in all this is another rather distinctive & original slice of underground noise from Altar Of Waste. And if you enjoy very oppressive & unsettling true crime based wall-ish or drone based noise, this is really worth a look!. Roger Batty
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