Cherry Blossoms At Night — Bulger
The release takes it name & theme from the infamous abduction & murder of James Bulger. Bulger was a 2 year old boy from Liverpool Uk, and in 1993 he was snatched from the local shopping center by two ten year old, who later tortured then murdered the toddler. The case is one of the most disturbing of British murder cases, due to the age of the perpetrators- it also added fuel to the fire of the film censorship debate that was going on in UK the 1990’s, as it was wrongly connected with the film Childs Play.
The white label & minimal black text CDR comes in a doubled side pro-printed sleeve, which takes in a black & white collage of newspaper head-lines about the case which are under laid by the infamous CCTV footage of the two boys abducting Bulger from the shopping center.
The disc has a running time of just shy of 70 minutes, and takes in three lengthy ‘walls’. The first track is entitled “Bulger”, and this just over twenty two minute track is a unforgiving example of thick ‘n’ nasty walled noise. The track is very layer dense and shifts between boorish & blunt roasting, rapid & coarse static rumbles, and deep meaty judders which are ribbed with searing static edges. The tracks certainly an all out attack on the sonic senses, but to my ears it seemed to lack focus & discipline- as it seemingly shifts at random between the textures- though it’s definitely still very much HNW.
Second up we have “Child A”( due to the ages of the perpetrators were called Child A & B)- this track comes in at the just under the nineteen minute mark. I found this track a lot more appealing than the first, as it seemed to be a bit more urgent & focused, also the textures are more rewarding too. It’s built around a galloping rumble, and this is topped off with a louder hissing tipped agitated & taut jittering texture. This track has a nice venomous & seared intensity to it, and I’d say it’s my favorite of the three tracks here.
Last up we have “Child B”, and this is the longest track here at the 28.40 mark. This track is built around a thick mesh of rapid rumbling ‘n’ deep galloping textures, which are tensely stitched by crisp static jittering n’ highly pressured air bubbling. As the track moves along I can make out a few subtle shifts between both textures, but mainly it’s a fairly firm affair. This tracks ok, and the textures do suck you in, I just felt it was maybe a bit too long for it’s own good.
So all in all I found Bulger is somewhat of mixed affair- track one was definitely intense but lacked focus, track two was both effective & intense, while the last track offered up rewarding textures but felt too over long.