Clive Henry — XVIII - Der Siebente Kontinent

Uk based Clive Henry is one of the most truly progressive artists working with-in the Harsh noise wall, or static noise genre. Each of his releases is a cleverly conceived & detailed themed journey into textured noise & walled noise matter, that weaves in elements of sound art & field recordings, ambience, experimental texturing, and what ever else he fancies.

This release from February 2013, was put out by the always excellent & consistent Minneapolis based HNW/ ambient/ experimental label Altar of Waste. The release came in a edition of twenty copies, & as of writing (late July 2013) there are still copies left direct from the label.

The release is themed around Michael Haneke's 1989 film, The Seventh Continent/ Der siebente Kontinent, which told  the story of a  European family who plan on escaping to Australia, but seem caught up in their daily routine, only troubled by minor incidents. However, behind their apparent calm and repetitive existence, they are actually planning something sinister, shocking & disturbing.  The film was a extremely chilling & coolly arthouse statement against the modern western world, consumerism & societies structure.

The CDR comes in Altar of Waste’s house style see-through DVD case, which features a double side colour cover that takes in key imagery from the film, and a few related texts.

The release offers up four tracks in all- the shortest coming in at just over the eight minute, and the longest at twenty two minutes. The four tracks see Mr Henry shifting from: sinister texture drone dwells that are ribbed with jarring textural electro vibe like elements. Onto brooding & rising textured noise churns, though to skipping ‘n’ churning HNW, onto moody & creepy nocturnal organ weaves that are suddenly set on by wonky tone bend's & guttural black metal or doomed metal grunts. Though to various field recording dwells, that take in the sound of birds & woodlands, footsteps, ect. Onto crackling & tunnelling texture noise with a rising & brooding organ back drone, though to all manner of textural creaking & patterned metallic scrapings/ jingling/ small noise texturing. Back to very moody & grim mixtures of doomed guitar sustain, and noise based texturing dwells. The each track nicely twists & turns through a fair bit of vaired sonic territory, yet  it also  works as a perfect if at times puzzling long form sonic journey too.

“XVIII - Der Siebente Kontinent” is another challenging yet highly rewarding release from Mr Henry, and once again he mangers to create an album of material which is clearly linked to the HNW genre, yet stands it’s own very distinctive & original sonic place.