A Raja's Mesh Men — Borophagus
This rather unusually named project started at some point in 2014, and is all the work of London noise scene-ster James Shearman. The projects releases take in a quite wide range of experimental/ noise genre traits taking in HNW, power electronics, industrial, drone and dark ambience. So far the project has put out around 20 + releases, and these take in digital releases, splits, tapes & CDR’s. This is my first taster of the projects work, and I must say I was very impressed with both tracks here.
Theme wise the releases two tracks ( Borophagus prt 1 & 2), are based around the 'Borophagus'- which is a extinct 'hyena-like' dog, it was known for both it’s bone crunching capabilities, and it’s brutal attacks on it’s prey.
Each the two track here runs between the twenty five to nearing thirty minute mark, and each is a highly rewarding excise in shifting yet precise ‘wall-craft'. Of the two tracks I’d say part 1 is the most shifting it it’s feel, as every few minutes Shearman moves into another ‘wall’- the second track stays longer on one set ‘wall’, but it does also shift too. But the thing that makes the release so worthy is the way he expertly shifts from one wall to the next, and the quality of the textures he is using too. We go from layered at times almost groove based ‘walls’ which blend together throbbing low end with detailed thinner crisp-ness, onto paired-back static studies which are alive with creative patterning, through to more atmospheric/ moody yet taut blends of semi harmonic noise repetitions which are weaved with rewarding smaller noise detail. Both tracks here have clearly taken a lot of thought, effort & time to create/ constructed, and Shearman really has great compositional skill- as each shift is perfectly executed, and each shift finds the listener in yet another rewarding textural meeting.
Apparently the project has a new physical release lined-up on Vagary Records soon- so I very much look forward to checking that out, as well all of the projects back catalogue. All in all Borophagus is a highly skilful example of how great shifting ‘wall-craft’ should be made. To hear / download this release head over to here.