Female Harakiri — Death Of Chizuko Mifune

The Female Harakiri project is one of the more elusive, mysterious, and erratic release wise to come out of the world wide HNW scene. The projects is seemingly from Japan, and made up of  just one person. Since 2007/2008 they’ve put out a hand full of release on various labels, and pretty much everything they’ve put out has been of a high standard.

“Death Of Chizuko Mifune” is a reissues of a 2007 self release CDR, and it features just a single self titled/ untitled track that scrapes in just under the twenty nine minute mark. The Chizuko Mifune of the title was a self proclaimed Japanese clairvoyant/psychic who lived in the Meiji period of Japan. She lived from 1886 till 1911 when she committed  suicide by ingesting poison.  She’s often quoted by Japanese horror movie directors & writers as a big influence on their craft/ stories.

The ‘wall’ on offer here is of a wonderfully dense, interlocking & ultimately deeply hypnotic yet grim quality. It’s built around a tightly weaved mix of constantly rolling ‘n’ boiling rumblings, juddering ‘n’ jittering static tonality, and threads of skipping metal like clippings ‘n’ snaps. These elements are pulled together to create this great ‘wall’ of sound that you cant help but get pulled into. As the ‘wall’ progresses  one seeminly starts to make out shifting patterns & new textured shapes with in the ‘wall’. But this is a sonic illusion, as like the best  HNW releases this in reality is fairly unmoving & fixed….just try zipping back to beginning of the track from any point in the tracks playtime to see what I mean.

In conclusion “Death Of Chizuko Mifune” is a truly great example of how to make compelling, hypnotic, and entrancing walled noise of the highest standard. Lets hope there’s some more Female Harakiri work soon, as when you get your hands on walled noise of this quality you really can not get enough of it!