Anonymous — Gettysburg
All this projects work is based/themed around key battles, places or events in history. And this release is based around Battle Of Gettysburg, which was the most casualties heavy battle of the American Civil War. The battle was fought between July 1–3, 1863, in & around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Each of the five tracks/ discs cover an important part of this battle, and starting off the set we have “McPherson’s Ridge – 1st July 1863”. This track is built around a fixed & juddering ‘wall’ which mixers together short rumbling cart- wheel-on-rocky-road repartition with a slight undercarriage of fixed crackling noise. The track has quite a stark & barren feel to it and it’s fairly hypnotic too, I just found it felt a little too long for it's own good, & rumbling/battering repetition would have be more effective around the half an hour mark.
Disc two is taken up by “Little Round Top – 2nd July 1863”, and this track is built around a galloping mass of pummelling & tightly jittering crisp ’n’ crunchy static. The two to three tones here follower a fairly similar locked/ simply pattern as the first discs ‘wall’ though with a more crisp & caustic static feel. Again this tracks is effective enough, and I found my head nicely locked into the ‘wall’ though-out.
Onto disc three, and we have “Cemetery Hill – 2nd July 1863”. This track starts off with a slowly appearing & very bleak mixture of a shorting mid-ranged noise tone & grey billowing white-out churn. As the track progresses it locks down into this looped & stark vibe which summons up images of repetitive artillery barrage against bleak grey skies. I guess you could say this is moving almost towards very stark ANW territory, yet the repetitive & agitated feel of the ‘wall’ keeps it under the HNW bracket.
Disc four is taken up by “Culp’s Hill – 2nd July 1863”, and this track returns to the more fixed, dense & overloaded feel of the first two discs. The ‘walls’ built around a very tightly wound & intense mass of juddering, rolling & jittering noise; and it rather brought to mind a mass of steam powered tanks( if there was/is such a thing!?), running over & churning up a mass of bodies on a mud filled battle field. This is one of my favourite moments here as it just so intense & dense in it’s attack, yet still very hypnotic too.
Lastly on disc five we have “Pickett’s Charge – 3rd July 1863”, and this ‘wall’ finds the project summoned a sort of locked glitch bound storm of noise. The tracks built around a glitch bound crackle ‘n’ jump that is underfeed by a searing/ winter static wind like textured haze. The track summons up very chilling & stark atmosphere that brings to mind ice cold rain ‘n’ wind lashing against a few battle warn survivors, as they try to make across a treeless & barren plain.
For the most part this is another effective collection of intense & un-moveable walled noise from this very mysterious project. It’s certainly not my favourite release thus far from this project( that honour goes to "Auschwitz-Burkina" box set), but most of the discs/ walls here are effective & at times brutality creative in their locked intensity.