CPTN Uzncwz — Praise Kary Mullis

This rather strangely named walled noise project is from Columbia, Missouri- and here we have a 3inc CDR that is seemingly the projects first ever physical release. The disc offers up a single twenty one minute slice of wall-matter, that’s both bluntly bothersome & barrenly muffled.

This release is a part of a batch of recent 3inch HNW releases on Florida based Inner Demons label.  The hand-stamped CDR comes in a small vinyl pouch- this features monochrome art of what look like flowers/ vegetation printed on heavy card stock. There’s also a  tracing paper/ Vellum insert featuring text. It’s a hand-numbered. And limited to a fairly scene generous edition of  42 hand-numbered copies.

The single track featured here “Praise Kary Mullis”, is a themed/ tribute to American doctor/ noble prize winning biochemist- who among other things created   Polymerase Chain Reaction/ theory. And seemingly all this project work is either themed around environmental/ natural issues, or ghosts/ spirits.

The twenty-one minute ‘wall’ is a nicely airless & compressing blend of slightly-roaming & buffeting low-end churn, and gritty-to-skittering grain.  The textures are fed out in a fairly unchanging manner, though there are subtle adjustments here & there- these mainly seem to occur with the thinner grain sweeps. On the whole, I found the track satisfying enough in its mix of bleak grinding & slightly flitting grain, and while the ‘walls’ hardly distinctive or fresh sounding-  there’s enough of CPTN Uzncwz own sonic peculiarities to make it stand out.

Praise Kary Mullis certainly has one of the more original themes I’ve seen from within the wall-noise scene. And while the ‘wall’ its self is less so, there’s enough about the ‘wall’ to keep you locked into though-out its length, and can definitely see my self-returning to the release again too….so all told an satisfying enough physical debut from the project.