A Raja's Mesh Men — Hanging Gardens

Here we have the first in the new batch of ’Neon Wall’ releases, put out by Lurker Bias- each release finds a new or more seasoned HNW artists offering up two sides worth of tape. The initial series featured ten releases, and this new set offers up yet another ten tapes. This first release in the new set comes from London Uk based project  A Raja's Mesh Men, and offered up here we have two slices of  constricted, often dense, yet interestingly layered wall-craft.

Each side of tape features just a single ‘wall’, and these each come in near the fifteen minute mark.  On side one  we have the track “Hanging Gardens I”, and this is a taut & bass bound affair. The  track brings together: a tight & bothersome low-end judder ‘n’ roll, a thinner jittering & shunting pattern, and a constantly descending of uniformed crackle.  The low-end pulls one in with it’s nasty boiling simmer, while the other more subtle layers keep you hooked into the ‘walls’ flow.  For the most part all the layers are fairly firm & fixed in their unfold, but from time-to-time you get the odd subtle shift in each tones set route. On the whole “Hanging Gardens I” is a nice slab of brutal & bothersome wall-noise, and it shows this project keeping up with the quality of their past work.

Flipping over to side B we have “Hanging Gardens II”.  This ‘wall’ opens up with a slightly slurred yet very meaty bass judder, that's topping with two thinner rattling patterns. As the track progresses the ‘wall’ moves between more thinned back dwells, blends of the meaty ‘n’ rattling, and even dense head-grinding sustains- which bring together more thick versions of the original textures settings.  As ‘walls’  go “Hanging Gardens II” is well conceived & crafted with some nice shifts, but personally it just didn’t grab me as much as the first sides track- not sure why, but it just didn’t.

So in conclusion Hanging Gardens is a great opener to this next batch of ‘Neo-wall’ series.The first sides ‘wall’ appealed more to me, but the second sides track is equally well made- with my feeling towards it been purely personal preference, and not any statement on the worth-ness of the ‘wall-craft’ it’s self.