Big Hole — Numb Hole

Here’s a very nice, handmade, little package from Big Hole: a small boxset containing three mini-CDrs and insert. All held together with two rubber bands, and labelled with handwritten words. Each disc comes in a separate plastic wallet, with an insert decorated with track information and a xeroxed photo. This photo, of a man’s face (who I think is probably Mr. Big Hole), becomes increasingly bleached or washed out with each disc. The set has three tracks, one on each CDr, and is dedicated to the artist’s wife.

The first piece, Numb Hole 1, is just over 20 minutes of hard, crackling, HNW. After a short, murky, porn sample (I presume), the wall shifts into being; it stutters and lurches, split between the two speakers. As I said before, it is very hard - very low-mid heavy - and this gives it a near-brittleness that’s very attractive to my ears. Although the wall is constantly stop/starting, the overall sound remains overwhelmingly static, and it ploughs along at a reasonably fast tempo until it’s end.

Numb hole 2 is the shortest of the three tracks, at just over 17 minutes long. After a similar sample to the first CDr, it launches into a wall not too fundamentally dissimilar from that first track. It lurches at a similar pace, with the same stuttering action. However, here the hardness is blunted somewhat - though perhaps decayed or run-down are better words. If Numb Hole 1 was a new engine, then Numb Hole 2 is that engine after many, many miles. The sound is dirtier, even rotted. The brittleness of the crackle has become a scuffing, and more trebly elements announce their presence.

The third and final disc begins in accordance with the previous two, with a slowed, muffled sample; however, the track itself is very different. The scuffing now reigns supreme; it almost resonates, as with a filter or parametric equaliser - the crackle aspect is nearly smoothed out entirely. It’s just shy of becoming an odd, arrhythmic, throbbing drone. Traditional wall elements do lurk at the edges of Numb Hole 3, though, hanging on, or bleeding through - depending on your viewpoint. The track speeds ever onwards - it feels faster than the other pieces - until it suddenly cuts to a strange reverberating sound, and finishes.

This is a great little set. It’s very nicely presented, plotting an effective line between the formality of something pro-printed, and the intimacy of the handmade. The sounds themselves are just as effective. Each disc is interesting enough in it’s own right, but presented as a trilogy, they plot a slow movement: I can’t decide if it’s a descent into ruin, or an ascension and concentration, but either way, it mirrors the procession of the man’s face on each cover. Although this is quite an old release, I believe it’s still available from the artist, so get it.