Carrion Black Pit — Cupio Dissolvi
The see-through blood red shelled cassette comes in a pro-printed single sided cover- this takes a close-up drawing of some swirled eyed & ghoulish monster face, with a gray, black, and muddy red color scheme. The release has an edition of twenty copies, and as of this review the label still has copies.
Behind Carrion Black Pit is São Paulo-based Elias C who has been active in the noise scene since 2011- releasing a blend of Harsh Noise, Industrial, and HNW under his project Sleep Of Age. And more power electronics themed noise under his Exu. Carrion Black Pit started in 2011, releasing around 30 releases thus far- which by HNW standards is fairly merger, but Elias always puts a lot of thought/ time into his ‘walls’- so you are always sure of quality & flare, no matter what release you pick up from him.
So on side A we have the track “New Dark Age”- this opens in a most creepy form. As we get a blend of slow ‘n’ wavering church organ simmer, & a slight slurred vocal sample of a man talking about the mysteries of the human mind. Fairly soon we get a layer of distant rumble & hazy crackle added to the organ & voice elements. And then at around minute mark the sample drops out, and we go pure ‘wall’- we get a blend of low end rolling ‘n’ churning sluggish-ness, jittering ‘n’ crusty static, and this on/off buffeting texture- which may just be apparent because of the textural blend. The whole thing conjures up a most murky & ancient type vibe- bringing together the textural sound of shredded storms of doomed & archaic books, lots of dust & cobwebs, stone crypt rumbles, and distant subterranean billows. At around the 12 & a half minute mark, we get this thinner constantly spiraling textures added to the mix, and this brings to mind the sound of either wheels on a stone floor, or the sound of constant & rapid opening of sliding stone doors. This addition really forces ones hearing deeper into the ‘wall’, and as a result, it seems to get even denser, bleakly moody, and pressing in its attack. By around the 23rd-minute mark, I’m sure I can make out just the faintest touches of slowly simmering church organ work, or ambience…but you can’t fully discern its true shape, pattern, or harmonic flow. Also, some of the textures seem to be taking on more of a blend rattling, chopping, and shaking in their feel. In the tracks last few minutes, these more musical moments form into a shuddering ‘n’ billowing horn like feel, which nicely ends things with a darkly epic & vast vibe.
Onto side B, and we have “Of Gods And Monsters - Everything Is Transient”. And this starts a lot more choppy & glitch- with a collection of rapidly moving slicing, darting, & hissing textures- over the top we another selection of sampled dialogue, by seemingly the same man/ source as the first side- you can’t really make out clearly what he says, but it’s certainly adds to feeling of atmosphere to the proceedings. At around the 39-second mark, a murky gong tone is struck, and we move into the ‘wall’ it’s self. This is built around a detailed yet sluggish matt of twitching & flapping static textures- these are underfed by this brooding gong ‘n’ bass like elements. As the track progress the textures get more rapid, and added to this we get slyly galloping sways of noise grain ‘n’ billow- at around the 7th minute we get these weird guttural & pained like moans, sighs- this nicely sends a shudder down one's spine. Then we drop-in to slight more formal ‘wall’ texturing, built around a constant burrowing & earthy deep rumble, that’s topped with these chopping ‘n’ knock texture- which sounds like they were created by using wood as a source. All this creates the feel of building earth churning tension & dread; as if some strange & huge earthbound Lovecraft like creature, is making it’s way towards you- slowly snapping both branches & trees as it nears closer. At just over the tracks mid-point a tight & taught jitter starts to take over the sonic picture, as the other elements fade back. This new development has a fairly woozy-yet- brutal feel to it, and underneath this, you can just make out the occasional wood bound knock. As the knocking elements finally passes, this buried swirling industrial ambient element can be made out, as well as slow circling wind type element. In the tracks last few moments these strange warbling ‘n’ wailing harmonic elements appear, as the tight & taut judders seem to get even more seared & caustic….then the ‘wall’ elements pan back, & the track ends with this drone ‘n’ tolling guitar wall element, with a man talking about 'the sun burning out one day & how liberating it will be'
In conclusion, Cupio Dissolvi is another high water mark in this project discography & one of the HNW highlights on 2017. It’s so great to see one of the scenes longer running projects reappearing with such a well crafted & impressive release, that manages to blend together creative wall texturing with subtle-to-more pronounced atmospheric elements- which move from bone chilling, scary, and bleakly epic. There were only twenty tapes of this made- so I advise picking this up sooner, than later as you really don’t want to miss out on this!.