Bonesfield/Facialmess — Split
Side A's artist, Bonesfield, is a Spanish noise musician I wasn't aware of and fuck, it seems like I was missing on a gem of European noise. His pristine, aggressive harsh noise is the quintessence of the extra-fast, swooshing and piercing Japanese style. His eight tracks are very heavy on rhythmic looping and high frequency sounds, constituting a frontal assault on the senses. I'd locate his work somewhere between Government Alpha's hi-tech, sometimes psychedelic obsession and Pain Jerk's most rhythmic moments. Bonesfield's music is perfectly crowned by very fitting futuristic/sci-fi titles. I already admitted my ignorance about this noise act, and I confirm that Bonesfield was a great positive surprise. I think I’ll have to track down more stuff by him and I say that this split tape is worth to get even just for his side.
Facialmess on side B is one of my favourites noise projects, and once again I’m glad to say that his material is great. This English lad is even more extreme than Bonesfield on the use of rhythmic noise loops, and his four tracks show off all his trademark sounds: heavy use of reverb, pauses and spoken word/reggae (sic!) samples that give the pieces lots of movement and air. The use of frequencies is quite balanced so you can get a fair share of rumbling crackle, high pitch feedback and laser sounds. Just like Bonesfield, Facialmess is very influenced by the Japanese masters of the genre, which makes complete sense since he lives in Tokyo. His side is simply fantastic from start to finish.
Both sides are blessed by a very clean quality of sound, which is not very common anymore in noise recorded outside of Japan, and by a total devotion to dynamics and super fast shifts, which has also been a declining passion in the last few years. For western comparisons, think about Sickness, T.E.F., Romance, or some works by Dead Body Love.
If you like your noise only when it's filthy and raw or monolithic and unchanging look somewhere else, but frankly I don't see why you should limit yourself when other stuff is this good.
As you can imagine this is my favourite kind of noise so please forgive my enthusiasm, but I recommend this tape to all lovers of harsh noise and even to people who want to get into it. I'll go all the way and declare that this is a perfect release to use as introduction to this genre, just as much as Merzbow, Incapacitants or Macronympha's classics.