Anonymous — My Lai
The massacre was carried out on March 16th 1968 in the hamlets of My Lai, My Khe & Son My, which are located in Quảng Ngãi Province of Vietnam. It saw the USA army soldiers of “Charlie" Company of 1st Battalion murder between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians- victims included women, men, children, and infants. It’s said some of the women were gang-raped, with their bodies later found to be mutilated. Initially 26 US soldiers were charged with the massacre, but in the end only one person(Second Lieutenant William Calley) was convicted. He was charged with killing 22 villagers, & he was originally given a life sentence, but only served three and a half years under house arrest.
Package wise this has to be one of the most elaborate/ grimly classy releases from this project thus far. The four discs come in a four disc DVD case, which features on it’s cover a full colour photograph of some of Massacre’s victims. Each of the four discs features a full colour label that takes in more pictures from the massacre. Then there’s twenty page booklet( fittingly on thick red paper) detailing the massacre, and it’s investigation. Also included is a single black ink on red inlay card which lists all the tracks on offer here.
Each of the four discs features two tracks a piece, and each track hits dead on the thirty minute mark. Starting off on disc one we have the track “March 16th 1968”, and this is built around a very tight & oppressive mixture of jittering, juddering & skipping low-to-mid ranged noise. These crunching, crackling & sputtering tones are fed into a detailed, truly unforgiving & densely unmoving mat of sound which seems to wrap around you like crawling & sickly heat of a Vietnamese jungle. The second track on disc one is “Charlie Company”, and this ‘wall’ is once again very taut in it’s feel. It constructed around a thick spluttering & chugging low-end rumble ‘n’ jitter, which is surrounded by rapidly moving yet slighter smaller jittering ‘n’ crisp cluttering.
Moving onto disc two, and first up we have “Pinkville”. And this ‘wall’ is built around a hazed & blurred selection of tones that have a distinctively aquatic feel to them- there’s a bent & wavering judder, and around this is a dense yet liquid like map of seething static. The track once again is very tense, enclosing & claustrophobic- and to me it brought to mind images of barbaric torture going on behind wooden shack doors, as a jungle monsoon batters around outside.
Next up we have “Son My Village” & this track is built around a muffled & slight uneven line of juddering low-to- mid range noise, over this is a chilling line of static crackle that rather brought to mind the slow eerier in & out sound of waves on a winter beach in the middle of night. The track mangers to be both intense, yet oddly haunting & chilling too.
Onto disc three, and it opens with “My Lai”, and this ‘wall’ is built around a slightly caught rumbling 'n' bubbling low- end tone, that’s played over by a pattern of thinner crackling & poping static. The track has a great taut & airless feel to it, and again it conjures images of torture & death- though this time they seem to be filmed in grainy, pockmarked black & white super eight.
Second up on disc three we have the track “My Khe”, and this track is built around a fairly rapid, fuzzed, thick yet drilling line of juddering noise, which is weaved over the top by muffled & slightly deformed patterns of static- these static tones rather brought to mind the hazed–out sound of fencing swords clashing. To start with this track feels a little underwhelming compared with the other tracks here, but if you give it time & effort the smaller static textures become most enchanting in their clashing detail.
So we move onto disc four- the last disc in the set, and first up we have “Women,Childern”. This first track has a rather unbalancing & slow motion feel to it, as it binds together a slurred yet thick juddering tone, with a pattern of fairly similar toned static that is slowly jittering & hiccupping it’s way along. I’m not sure if it’s a trick of the ‘wall’, or it’s happening but on this track in particular I can make out quite complex & detailed static patterns that seem to appear 'magic eye like' out of the ‘wall’.
Lastly we have “…And Babies”, and this ‘wall’ rather brought to mind the sound of flapping & unreeled film in a old projector- it’s focused on this thick yet flapping textural judder, which from time to time has thin & tiny subtone crackles coming off it. The track once again is quite intense yet eerier in it’s feel, and to me it feels like your in a hot dark room sitting in shocked silence as some snuff film like footage from the massacre has just finished playing out.
Over it’s two or so year existence this project has released some of the most intense, yet sonically descriptive & sometimes emotionally effecting HNW the scene has ever seen. With “My Lai” the project is certainly at the top of it’s game, creating a series of eight tracks that are both creative, harrowing & intense. Add to this the classy yet grim packaging from Victimology Rec, and you have a classic HNW release.