Dead Body Collection/Small Hours — This will Be your Life Without you
“This will Be your Life Without you” takes it’s theme & a handful of dialogue samples from 2003 USA emotional drama “My Life With out me”. The film charts the story of a young women Ann(Sarah Polley) who is told she has terminal cancer, but instead of telling people about it she decides to live her life with a passion she never had before. So the pair attempt here what could be called emotional HNW ( or emo HNW!) here, but don’t be put off by that description as most of the noise here is still damn roasting ‘n’ battering, I guess due to the theme & the pairs own subtle yet felt textured manipulations this releases feels quite bleak & well emotional
The CDR features four fairly lengthy tracks that fall between the seventeen minute and eighteen half minute mark. First up we have “Eyes Closed, Out In The Rain” which is a track created by Dead Body Collection- this just over eighteen minute track starts with (what I presume to be ) the Ann character in the movie talking about re-connecting with nature, with the sound of steady rain shower behind her. At just over the one minute twenty mark the ‘wall’ scorchers in with a two toned mix of slow to mid-paced ‘wall-noise’ that brings together roasting ‘n’ jittering noise that’s underfed by more billowing’ juddering noise tonality. The ‘wall’ remains very thick & intense through-out it length, yet there seems to be a subtlety pained & slight slowing feeling with in the ‘walls’ make-up which seems to expand & become more
obvious as the track goes on- the track never slows completely down, but it does hints at almost ANW tendencies.
Next up we have “I'm Afraid There's... There's Nothing We Can Do” which is by Small Hours- this track comes in at seventeen minute mark. The track starts with a doctor talking to the Ann character telling her she has terminal cancer, then around the one minute & a half point a low volume texture of rumbling static slips in, with-in the next few minutes more layers of noise are added into create this seared like textural white-out which mixes buried cable judder & hissing/boiling grained like noise textures. Ever so often the ‘walls’ adds in seeming another band of hissing or boiling noise grain, and this nicely fits the theme of cancer slowly but surely spreading around ones body. By just past the 5th minute another more intense & slightly higher toned boiling ‘n’ searing layer of noise slides in. Around the 7th minute another more intense layer of noise is added to the ‘wall’, and again this nicely illustrates in a sonic manner the more rapid spread of cancer as it gets a deeper & deeper hold on the young women’s body. At around the 11th minute when you think things can’t get any more seared Small Hours start to subtlety thin ‘n’ slow down the intensity of layers of noise giving this slight more open & textureally separated ‘wall’, and just before it end's the track drifts out in textural white-out once more.
Up Next we have “Alone. You're Alone”- this is the longest of the four tracks at 18.36. This is a Dead Body Collection track that utilizes source material from Small Hours. Once again the track starts with a dialogue sample from the film, but it’s a little short then the other introductions at just over the ten second mark- the sample features Ann saying “Your alone, you never been so alone in your live…lies are you only company” over an mournful string backing. The ‘wall’ sort of rapidly fades in after this, and pretty soon it locks down into a fairly firm mixture of tightly woven bass judder that’s fed over by mid tone skipping yet tightly wound static. As the track progresses the skipping static element seems to expand and intensify into caught yet rotating jitter industrial seared noise tones, these nicely batter away at you as well as build up the tension to great heights. The rest of the track sees DBC nicely pull in the ‘walls’ tension with tighter static judders/ static, then once more expanding it again with the more caught industlized churns. The lower bass judder remains fairly fixed & unmoving through-out the tracks length, through at times it does feel like it’s becoming more pressing & close. The last few minutes of the track slips into a sort of roasting white-out that’s a similar to the white-out static moments in the last track, but pitched a few tones higher.
So onto the last track which is entitled gloomily “And The Dead Don't Feel Anything, Not Even Regret”, and this comes in at just over the seventeen minute mark- this track is a Small Hours track that utilizes source material from DBC. And once again there’s another bleak dialogue sample from Ann, then with in fifty seconds we’re into the ‘wall’. This time the ‘wall’ moves closer to ANW territory with a fairly stripped yet airless mix of two or three static tones- we have a constant searing hissing tone, a juddering on rail like element, and possible a more spaced out & intermit wiry insect like scraping tone. As the track goes on the tones seem to spread-out & loosen a little bit meaning the hissing feels more intense & juddering feels more unwinding & slightly wonky. Around the 11 minute mark the tones seem to get more manic slowly flicking & grating in & out of the ‘wall’, and this creates a nice panicked feeling, that I guess it could nicely capture the last fitful moments of Ann’s life.
All told this is an surprisingly thoughtful & well put together release of emotional seared HNW- the pair work well together with each others take on ‘wall making’ complementing the others nicely. I look forward to hearing future collaborations between these two.