Doodshoofd — Drukkend
This CD-R, limited to a mere 30 copies, is the epitome of d.i.y.. It’s simply a blank disc in a xeroxed, black and white paper cover. The front image is the artist’s name written in graffiti art style with the title in cleaner text with all the pertinent info on back. Nothing spectacular, but it is what it is.
On Drukkend Doodshoofd presents one long ass slab of “wall.” The opening salvo of this beast is actually pretty aggressive harsh noise, rather than a static block of sound. There’s a lot of shifting static coupled with meatier bass tones. At times it sounds like people speaking, but all distorted and muffled, barely perceptible. It’s these moments that remind me a little of The Rita’s Eyeliner Into Nylon Black Seam. He’s certainly not as focused as The Rita, but there is some vague resemblance.
It takes some time before the wall is truly set, but it does shortly before the 7 minute mark. The wall consists of a thin line of static crackle and thicker line of heavy bass juddering. The thicker tones sound like a distressed bongo drum dropped down a few octaves. Truth be told I’m a sucker for minimal static crackle and would’ve been happy with an hour’s worth of that. The heavier tones I don’t find as pleasing and it sounds like he periodically chokes off the line making it hard for me to get completely transfixed by the wall. The bulk of the track resides in this space where the static and bass kind of duke it out for supremacy. At times it sounds like a muffled human voice, other times like an engine on the verge of death. He plays with the speed and tempo of the sounds throughout the track. The static screeches a bit towards the track’s conclusion, breaking away from the wall.Then at 1:09:22 it abruptly ends.
I kind of have mixed feelings about this release. At times it approaches tones reminiscent to The Rita and other times it sounds like unremarkable wall-making. Ultimately, I feel like there was a bit too much fiddling with the gear to be a completely successful HNW piece.