Dead Body Collection/Static Mantra — Har Megiddo
The two colour labelled cassettes come in a small-ish black vinyl case, which features on it’s outside grimly effective & simplistic yet nightmarish full colour college work by Yasutoshi Yoshida ( of Japanese harsh noise project Government Alpha). The artwork is a mixture of zombie faces, crying babies, the moon, human bodies hung from cranes, and lots of flames. The split’s title Har Məgiddô is thought to be the Hebrew languages original word for Armageddon….oddly the cover & title suggested to me a Power electronics or apocalyptic Harsh noise release, instead of dense/ punishing/ brutal HNW.
Tape one is sub-titled “Judgment”, and side A in taken up by the solo DBC track which is entitled “Judgment Of All Men”. The tracks a fairly fixed mixture of churning ‘n’ muffled low-end droning noise, and a even blanket of crisp static. The low end tone is nicely tunnelling & oppressive, while the static ‘n’ jittering tone has a neat stereo channel darting feel to it. All told it's a simple yet effective bit of walled noise that's both memorable & enchanting.
Side B is taken up by the Static Mantra track which is entitled “Insight Judgment”. It’s a nice meaty, taut & mid speed mixture of juddering ‘n’ buzzing low end, rolling & jittering low to mid ranged noise, and some slight extra juddering/ hacking sub-tones. Again its another effective slice of no nonsense brutal & fairly morish walled noise which keeps you entrapped for it’s full running time
Tape two is sub-titled “Revelation 16:16 “. Side C is the first of the collaborative tracks, and it’s entitled “The Plain Next To The City”. This track is built around a truly brutal & battering 'wall' that mixers together billowing/ rumbling low-end droning/ galloping noise, with a more crisper/ searing line of jittering static texturing. The track is truly unforgiving & intense, and is a great example of extreme ‘wall-making”, which at first seems too overwhelming, but over time becomes most addictive & trance inducing.
Side D is taken up by the second collaborative track “World To Come”. And this track is another very intense & truly unforgiving slice of dense, roasting & inescapable walled noise- the ‘wall’ is built around a rapid mixture of rolling/ billowing back drone that has this rapidly jittering/ steaming mass of static on top. It’s truly a devastating & flooring bit of noise making which scolds, batters, and roast your head into submission.
All in all this is a nicely presented & put together box set, with both the solo & collaborative tracks been rewarding- if pushed I’d say the collaborative tape is my favourite of the two tapes, as each of the tracks are so damn brutal & inescapable. Let’s hope there’s some more collaborative work from this pair in the near future, as together they do really brew-up some truly intense walled noise.