Cory Strand — Void Immersion

Void Immersion is Cory Strand’s addition to the Lurker Bias Neon Wall series, and it sees him offering-up three examples of wall-noise/drone blends.  Mr Strand should be well known to fans of  either the wall noise scene, or the experimental noise/drone underground-  for his prolific output( under his own name, or under project banners such as Lethe, Fantome De Sang, Dejection, etc). Or for his  highly respected HNW and dark ambient/drone label label Altar Of Waste, which has released around just over 400 releases in it’s four year existence.

The tape features two tracks on its first side, then on the second side we have just a single track. So side A’s two tracks come in the form of "Floating Like A Ghost", and "These Lights Are The Doors". Each of these tracks are truly punishing excises is cold & crushing wall- nihilism. The first track is built around an oppressive & brutally smootherd blend of huge bass rumbling, & thinner ‘n’ slightly crisper jitterings/ shakings. The second track consists of a rapid, tight & stuck low-end judder, which is surrounded by a thinner mass of feasting static grain.  These first sides tracks are  splendid examples of extremely barren ‘n’  brutal slices of no- nonsense ‘wall-craft’, and they perfectly fit the releases title.

Over on side two we have just the single track, and this is entitled  “Like Reflected In A Magic Mirror”. And I guess you’d say this track is in more of a taut drone meets HNW setting. It’s built around a continually chiming & churning mid-range tone(which sounds like a stuck guitar note), and this is warped in a bubbling & muddy crackle. The central tone has quite a seared yet stuck harmonic feel to it, and this sort of slightly fluctuates in the muddy crackle.  The track is ok as a drone/wall crossbreds go, but to my ears it just seems a bit too bright & (almost) buoyantly churning compared to the first side’s barren intenisty.

So in conclusion I found that the first two tracks were entrancing slices of wall- noise nastiness, and I really could have listened to them for twice their running time. The third track is ok, for what it was, but I just felt it didn’t link into  the numbing sonic nihilism of the first two tracks & the releases title.