Discretion — Sewer Meditations

There are two kinds of "good" HNW: the first is a sound so singular and uniform that it induces trance-like states, and the second is one that has multiple layers of sound hidden underneath each other, emerging in subtle ways. Discretion's "Sewer Meditations" c32 falls into both of these categories.

The first track is super crunchy, most likely the result of the source sound being run through a pile of distortion pedals, like the wall is trying desperately to stay intact but gets knocked down just as soon as it is rebuilt, repeating in an endless cycle. The second track kicks in with a high-pitched buzz, the sound I imagine is made when you throw a steak against an electric fence. Underneath the buzz, a gargling wall spits out gross crackle.

Onto the third track, things get much lower, rumbling, and dark, but still retaining the "flutter" effect of the previous two tracks, usually the result of extreme overblowing and and string of distortion pedals. Also like the previous two, it focuses on two sounds: the main, in this case the low rumbling, and the secondary crackling, although this time the cracking finds itself on top (most likely because  the main sound is so low-pitched). The final track, a departure from the norm, starts off shifting and spinning around, finding the wall, and then rebuilding itself just as soon as the wall is located. This final track is interesting in particular because it questions the exact definition of HNW, as there is undoubtedly a wall present, and the sound is very much in the spirit of HNW, but it shifts around so much and so quickly it could not fit the "dictionary definition" of the genre.

Overall, the tape is extremely harsh and overblown, and has a unique kind of sound for HNW (as in, unlike 99% of HNW, you don't know what this tape sounds like unless you put it on).