Dosis Letalis — In Our Heads
In Our Heads is a two-track journey into texturally creative-at-times-unpredictable walled noise from Serbia’s Dosis Letalis. The release is from late 2023- coming as either a C60 tape or digital download- and as of writing this review there are still physical copies available
The release appears on Chicago’s Lurker Bias- who some years back went through a stage of releasing a fair bit of walled/ textured noise. The white-shelled cassette features a dotted-overlaid colour/black-and-white design. It's presented in a pro-printed/double-sided card slip- on its front side is a selection of three out-of-focus/ monochrome photographs of human figures. Inside we get tiles of the dotted/ overlaid patterns from the cassette label. All in all it's a well-presented tape- with the visual elements having a nicely unsettling/eerie edge to them.
If you have even a passing interest in the walled/ textured noise genre- I'd hope you’d know Dosis Letalis( aka Nemanja Nikolić). The project has been active for the last ten years or so- racking up coming on for one hundred and eighty releases so far. The project's output focuses on both the more experimental/ creative side of walled noise, as well as more old-school/ classic sounding HNW/ ANW. Been one of the more long-running/ respected names in the worldwide walled noise scene.
The first track is entitled “Can We Ever Escape Them”- which runs at twenty-nine minutes and fifty-three seconds. The wall is built around a selection of constantly rolling/ yet unpredictable layers of gritty snap, grainy pop, and circular crunch. The track feels akin to watching some form of doughy white flesh-bound mass rolling back and forth in a mixture of broken glass shards and flesh browning/ popping flame. The whole thing is most enchanting- with a rewarding mix of rolling back-and-forth layer detail and neat textural unpredictability.
The second track is “Are We Forever Trapped”- this comes in at the twenty-nine minute and fifty-seven-second mark. Here we find a layered mix of taut static grit, buffeting judder, and wind-like sweep. I enjoy the balance of both taut tension and low-key atmospherics with this track. It’s not as texturally unpredictable as the first track, though I’m sure there are a few moments of subtle pattern shift/ movement here- but these may well be a trick of the ‘wall’.
In Our Heads is yet another consistent release from Dosis Letalis- with both tracks offering up originality, entrancement, and low-key moodiness. If you fancy picking up a full/physical copy of this, do it sooner than later- as there are not that many left!.