Forniphilia — Useful or Useless
Forniphilia is a project that brings together Ramirez with Houston based Tanner G (also of Ramirez’s S&M gay bondage themed noise jam group Black Leather Jesus, and solo ambient/ sound-scaping work). The two tracks on offer here are best described as sleazed/ psychedelic noise drone.
The cover features a trip-out/ hazed picture of a women in underwear being stepped on. And the track titles follow a similar tone with the first track entitled “Women as Doormats”, and the secound “Male footstool”….though I suspect it’s all meant to be tongue-in-cheek manner.
The first track comes in at 8.06 mark, and is built around a dense, but mostly slowly shifting yet painful drone mesh of billowing, grating & rumbling noise tones. There quite a slurred 'n' slowed junk metal feel to the track at times, but there’s also a slowed noise drone, or more active & churning textured noise feel here too. The whole thing has quite a muddled feel to it, but I must say I rather enjoyed it’s muffled, sleazed & slow churning chaotic vibe.
The second track comes in at 9.48 mark, and is built around layered & quite primal sound mixture of droning noise textures, unlike the first track the elements here play-out mostly in fairly fixed state. The textures take in slightly forking wind like drones, crackling & bubbling lines of static, slowed looped alien like chatters, and the odd hint of a harmonic guitar element which keeps flitting at the edge of the track. The track remains mostly murky & hazed, only really turning more intensely judder 'n' jitter bound noise in the last minute or so. This track is way more murky & less abrasive than the first track, though it still has quite a nice ‘n’ sleazed undertone to it.
On the whole I rather enjoyed “Useful or Useless”, as it offered up two fairly varied tracks that fit well together to create a brutal & dense, then more murky 'n' muffled take on drone based harsh noise