Big Hole — The Lime Twig
It must be a year or two since I personally played/ reviewed new work from this project on M[m] - so it’s certainly nice to revisit this always consistent/worthy projects work. Big Hole started releasing material in 2014, carrying on fairly evenly release material until late 2015, with some flurries of releases in 2016/ 2017- so I guess you could say The Lime Twigg is somewhat of a comeback release.
I’m reviewing the C120 version of the release- this came in an edition of 17, and sadly these are all gone from the label- though who knows you might be able to source a copy in either discogs or via noise focused mail order….but of course, you can still download the release. The plain black tape comes in a monochrome single-sided sleeve- on the front cover we get a rather striking photo of a horse at the window of a block of brick built flats. And on the inside, we get a grainy snap of a shadowy two-story building at nighttime, with white text over the top.
The theme for both sides of tape is The Lime Twig- a 1961 postmodern/ experimental novel by American novelist John Hawkes. The novel is based in England just after the second world war- it focuses in on sedate, bored lower-class couple—Michael and Margaret Banks—who get lured into fronting a racehorse scheme. Apparently, the books writing structure moves between framed narrative & third-person storytelling, and it's broken up by dream-like sequences. So it’s certainly an intriguing/ original theme for an HNW release.
As mentioned early this release just takes in two hour-long tracks- either one on each side of the tape, or both together in digital form. So up first we have the track “A Real Smashing”- this is built around a dense weave of similar mid raged juddering textures- these are weaved by ties of smaller & crisp rattle/ buffeting texturing. To start with the pace of the ‘wall’ seems fairly rapid & semi blurred in its attack, but over the track's runtime the pace is seemingly slowing, and at the same time there feels like there’s both more separation/ textural definition occurring. It’s a most appealing bit of ‘wall’ matter, that really sucks you in from the outset, and keeps you held there- I’m still not completely sure how much layer & speed manipulation is going on here, and how much is down to the illusion of the ‘wall’ it’s self- but I guess it doesn’t really matter.
The second & final track here is the wonderfully entitled “The Eyes Devoid Of Irises”. This opens in extremely meaty, thick & brutal form- with a blend of hovering ‘n’ grinding low end, and rapid ‘n’ crusty static hacks- this is topped off by a very subtle shifting network smaller clutters, pops, jitters, and jumps. The low-end seems to be trying to literally drag you down into it’s crude & blunt mire, while the other textures both batter & fascinate in equal measures. As the track progresses the weight & crushing heaviness of the whole thing does seem to subside somewhat- moving more towards slightly active, and more detailed layer bound territory- though of course, this could all be just a trick of the ‘wall’ it’s self. Of the two tracks here I’d say this is just my favorite, as I really love the way Robinson is layering together these damn heavy & crushing textures in such an interesting & rewarding manner.
So, in conclusion, The Lime Twig is a pretty great slab of dense, weighty, yet creatively built walled noise- it’s safe to say it will certainly be appearing in my best of 2018 list, and it’s great to welcome back Big Hole.