closing. — III

III by closing. arrives from Modern Tapes on a purple cassette in a smart printed cardboard box, along with a tiny inlay, a card advertising upcoming Modern Tapes releases, a sticker, and a download code. The album has three tracks, all blending eerie drones with lo-fi field recordings; a focused sound but a good one.

The first piece, ‘Through The Cold Mouth’, is also the shortest, lasting just over six and a half minutes; it combines several layers of airy drones alongside recordings of junk noise, though it’s more of a disinterested clatter than any kind of skree. The overall effect is subtle, ominous, there’s no attempt to overwhelm the listener, more an attempt to suck the listener in; the track is detailed and well-crafted, even more so given the somewhat sombre and simple elements it uses. ‘No One Watching’, the second track, is twice the length, and pursues a similar path for the 13 minutes. Again, the order of the day is drones and noises from (presumably) field recordings, however there is more space and movement than in ‘Through The Cold Mouth’. It begins with delicate, sparse, crunchy sounds, quietly scraping through the speakers, before large low drones loom in and out, then take over; it feels fuller than the first track, and more colourful - odd subdued bird-like sounds appear in its second half. There’s a genuine sense of a huge space, of micro sounds punctuated by slow tectonic explosions. The third and final track, ‘It's Not Rocket Silence’, nearly breaks the 22-minute mark. It begins with huge reverbed low throbs dwarfing mid-distance junk sounds, as items are shifted and manipulated; soon enough another thick droning tone appears and over the course of the track builds into a thick, many-layered, snaking dark drone with submerged sounds - including voices - moving in, out, and around. It has an apocalyptic feel and closes the album effectively.

I realise that my descriptions might make III sound boring or one-dimensional, and it’s true that the tape draws on a very limited palette of sounds, but this focus makes it powerful and unrelenting. It does have a soundtrack quality, and for some reason it makes me think of Mad Max, but without vehicles or people, just bleak night landscapes with scattered rusting wrecks. There’s an effective tension between the drones which, whilst eerie and overall murky, have a purity of tone, and the field recording sounds which are subtly noisy without dominating the sound field; it's all mixed superbly well. Structurally, and in terms of attention to detail, there’s a trace of electroacoustic in the cassette too, though III is a slow-burning trip with few dynamic shifts. Fans of synth murk and droning dread will find much to savour here