A Month In The Wine — Eclipse
The white shelled & monochrome label cassette comes presented in a Day-Glo green with black ink printed sleeve. This is doubled side featuring in the front cover a drawing of winged creature- not sure if this is meant to a moth or not, but to me, the body looks too bulk- maybe a mutant moth. This came in an edition of twelve copies.
Each side of the tape features a single thirty two minute track, and first up we have “A Tone As Bright As The Sun”. Here we find a very densely packed-yet- constantly feasting ‘wall’- it’s built around a fiddling ‘n’ flowing low end, which is both sluggish and pelting. Around this, we have a chugging & judder line of muffled static, with the whole thing waved with subtle pops 'n' snaps. The ‘wall’ wraps around you like a damp constricting blanket, with static bound elements giving the feel of a slow roasting chemical fire- so may be your blanket is slowly burning as you sit under is the sodden weight. This really is a good headphone 'wall', as the low-end really slugs and batters your head, while the feast static elements pulls you in further- making for very much of a grower. In the last ten minutes or so, I’m possibly detecting a decrease in pace & a more snapping tone coming into play- but this could just be a sonic illusion.
Flipping the tape over we have “A Tone As Dark As The Moon”- this feels a lot less dense & crushing, with an almost flighty/ buffeting feel to proceedings. The ‘wall’ constructed around a blunt & distant billowing drone, this is edged by both a roaming-yet-hollowed out mid-range, and a selection of thinner baffling 'n' baying active sweeps. It feels akin to trying to walk along a wind tunnel, as the engine are just firing-up, I enjoy the thinner buffeting tones, with the drone & roaming elements inviting you in more & more. All told it’s a great energetic slice of wall-matter, that sonically nicely blows you around.
In finishing Eclipse offers up two very different walls, with each worthy in their own right- if pushed I’d say the second was slightly more instantly appealing, but the first side does reward replays. If you want to snap up a copy of this before they are all gone- head here