Female Harakiri — Sad Premonition

This Japanese walled noise project has had one of the more erratic release schedules of the normally super prolific HNW scene. The project has been releasing work since 2007/2008, but only putting out a hand-full of releases on various labels, and pretty much everything they've put out has been of a very high standard. And the same goes for Sad Premonition, which is sadly to be the last release from Female Harakiri.

This release is a joint release between two respected underground Italian noise labels, HNW label Claustrophilia(run by Lorenzo Abba of blacked & suicidal wall noise project Nascitari),  and HNW/ Harsh noise/ experimental label Toxic Industries (run by Fabrizio De Bon  of industrial influenced Harsh Noise/ HNW project Fukte).

The release comes in DVD case that features a  black, white & blood red cover, which features on it's front cover a blood spluttered picture of a smiling young oriental women. Also included is a A5 pink inlay slip which describes the theme/ concept behind the release. Theme wise, like most of this projects out put, this release is  once again based around a troubled, dead, or  haunting female figure. And it's subject/ theme is Yukiko Okada- a Japanese teen pop singer, who in 1983 won the Tokyo  based TV talent show Star Tanj¨­!. But sadly committed suicide in 1986 (at the age of 18), by jumping off the top of Sun Music building....it's still unclear why she committed suicide, but her death trigged a whole host of copy cat suicides in Japan.

The CDR features just a single self titled track which comes in at the 27.40 mark. The 'wall' jumps straight in with a  thick & taunt mixture of murky low-range judder/ churn, this is cruelly weaved by a coarse jittering 'n' feasting mid range static tone . The mix of these two elements create a very captivating 'wall' which seems to be continual descending (very apt considering the releases theme) yet still very taut & tense. At around the 4th minute the murky/ low range tone seems to have wound down even more( which I guess could suggest the ground coming closer & closer to  falling a body). At the same time the secondary jittering/ feasting tone seems even more caustic & seared- yet this also seems to be slowly dipping in it's pace. This steady & constant slowing in both textures seems to carry on through-out the most of the track- yet it never fully slows right down to a full stop. Also as the track progresses the textures start to blur/mix together more & more creating this great feel of trapped weighty tension. At around the 20th minute you get this swirling 'n' melted easy listening element fed into the wall, and this creates a feeling of child like sad-nests & unwell-ness. At the 22nd minute mark the 'wall' sudden cuts out, and in it's place we get a slow & moody piano melody, which seems slightly warped around the edges, under this is subtle vinyl like crackle. The piano element plays out for a little while longer then we just get the subtle looped vinyl crackle, and this  ends the whole thing in a very sombre, poignant yet slightly unsettling place.

All told this is a truly great slice of walled noise, that' both captivating & sonically descriptive regarding it's theme & the sad fate of  Ms Okada.  This release comes in a fairly scene generous edition of 40 copies, so all been well you should still be able to get hold of this¡­ this is certainly one of this years wall-noise highlights, and should not be miss by any self respecting 'wall-head'!.(review note- Through-out the review I've used the english translation of this releases title, as for some reason M[m] system won't deal with Japanese text today!)