An event completely dedicated to harsh noise wall (HNW), with Uitgeschakeld as the headliner. It’s not that I thought David López Saludes (of Soma, Barrera and Impur fame) was lying to me when he proposed this. As a matter of fact, it sounded awesome – but with HNW being as underground as it gets, being a sub-genre within noise music, I feared this would be too obscure to pull off as a live event.

Raté is a Bordeaux-based project that creates searing, at times subtle, unsettling wall noise. It’s been active since November 2024, releasing around thirty releases to date, so a fairly prolific wall venture. I’ve reviewed a few of Raté’s releases now, finding it (largely) a consistent wall noise project, and a worthy addition to the French wall noise scene, which over the years has birthed some great acts such as Vomir, Chier, and all the projects connected to Julien Skrobek. So, I tracked down the mind behind the ‘walls’, Gabriel Berteaud, for an email interview.

It’s fair to say the Sharksploitation genre is often tried, tested, and to be honest, tired. Fear Below is a 2025 Australian film that tries to do something different and original with the form. It’s set in the 1940s and focuses on a van full of stolen gold at the bottom of a large river, with a bull shark circling & darting through the murky water.  The film manages to mix gangster thriller tropes with shark-bound action very well, with a pace that barely lets up. It features moments of real-looking gore attacks, and the shark itself is only fleetingly seen, so it never feels like you're looking at either CGI or a model. It’s been released by Signature Entertainment on VOD, with a Blu-ray appearing shortly. Matthew Holmes- the film's Australian director/ co-writer kindly agreed to an email interview, discussing Fear Below, and his career in general.

2025 sees the release of The Residents' most sonically contrasting release Doctor Dark- the project's forty-seventh studio album.  It blends sad and swooning strings/piano keys, with blunt 'n' crude heavy metal, and a side order of electro beats, off-Broadway theatricality, mocked-up news reports, and twittering bird field recordings/uneasy ambience. Lyrical/theme-wise, the album blends 80’s heavy metal influenced shotgun suicide, and a creepy doctor involved in euthanasia. We were lucky enough to get an email interview with the project's Homer Flynn- key graphic designer, spokesman & manager. We discuss the new album, the compilation Buy Or Die- Ralph Records 1972-1982- looking at the project's label, their late 2024 EP Dookietown, and much more.

Ennaytch is a US project that creates a creative, layer detailed, and often ambient-focused take on walled noise. It started in 2021, having fifty-plus releases to its name. It’s probably most known for the seemingly unending ‘Vacuum Cleaner Music’ series, which weaves a storyline into ‘wall’ kind. It regards an abused housewife who rebels against misogyny, murders her husband, and goes on a killing spree- though this was just the start of the story, which has now been expanded into some fairly wacky/ bizarre places. Below is an email interview with the man behind Ennaytch Tommy Lenahan, where we discuss how the project started, the VCM series, it’s other work, and beyond

Dead, Dead Swans (aka Milwaukee, Wisconsin's John E Swan) play a blend of raw and world-weary American folk music, with some real tuneful edges. I first became aware of the band late last year with the release of their second album Even Still, We Were Together, on Punkerton Records. I’ve recently just heard and reviewed the reissue of their first album, 2022 Lenses (also on Punkerton) - so I thought what better time to track down Mr Swan for an email interview.