Cherry Blossom At Night — A Vast Black Sleep
The plain black tape comes in a fairly pro looking black & white cover. This features on it’s front a old print of figure asleep (or dead) on a table surrounded by owls & demons. With the rest of the sleeve taking in texts & the labels logo.
So first up we have "A Vast Black Sleep Pt I". This track opens up being built around a fairly simple yet grimy & oppressively effective mix of the following two main elements: a murky & muffled distant train tunnel like rumble, a thin semi-bedded line of static crackle pattern-nation. At around the four & a half minute mark the whole thing grows slightly faster, denser & more intense- with both textures shifting from their early stark simmer to a more buffeting swirl- yet we still retain the original feeling inescapable of bleak-ness. By around the 15 minute I can make out more layers of both rumbling & thicker buffeting textures been added to the ‘wall’- yet these don’t depart too far from the original texturally settings; so they nicely deepen the intensifying bleak-ness of the whole thing. At the 25 minute just when you feel the ‘wall’ may fully dense up, things pare back once again as we get a sudden return to the mix of thinner stark rumble & reduced down yet bitter static crackle. From here on till the end of the track we stay in this setting, and the whole thing nicely washes over you in its barren mix of unchanging rumble & crackle.
Moving onto side 2 we have "A Vast Black Sleep Pt II", and this starts off extreme stripped back & ultra bleak. It brings together an even more distant tunnel like rumble, with extremely thin layer of crackling static. By around the four & a half minute mark both elements slowly but surely start to grow in depth to create a nice roasting yet barren feel; yet unlike the first side it still remains fairly pared back in it’s unfold. In the tracks last qauter the whole thing nicely thins back down again. I’d say of the two tracks I like this the most as there’s more of a purring & roasting fixed-ness to the ‘wall’, and it really creates a most satisfyingly heavy & numbing vibe.
A Vast Black Sleep is a most apt & fitting title for this release as both sides(and especially the second)create the sonic feeling of such a grim, pressing & light-less slumber.