G'Mork — Untitled
The project is all the work of Hal Harmon(of HNW/ Harsh Noise project Vasectomy Party, HNW project Man With The Icy Eyes & runner of the excellent noise/ experimental label Forever Escaping Boredom). And the projects takes it’s name from the massive talking werewolf like creature which is the main villain in the film.
Each disc takes in two tracks a piece- on disc one these each come in around fifteen minute mark, and on disc two each track comes in around the twenty seven minute mark.
So start off disc one we have the track “A Question Asked...An Answer Received”- and this opens with a sample from the movie- this features a rather moody mix of swirling soundtrack & a discussion between the films human child hero & one of the characters from Fantasia ( the mythical land were the film is set).With-in a minute or two the wall kicks in & it’s a taut/ fairly firm wall that’s built around a base of buffeting ‘n’ roasting texturing, which is weaved with layers of grain based patterning- which is akin to fixed static sand storm. For much of the track runtime the whole thing is fairly fixed, though from time to time you get large knots of textural meshing appearing.
The second track on disc one comes in the form of “Approaching The Southern Oracle”, and this once again opens with a sample from the film, this time it’s purely a bit of dramatic orchestration. With-in a minute or so the ‘wall’ appears around the edge of the sample, and pretty soon the sample fades back & the ‘wall’ takes sonic centre. This ‘wall’ starts out rather thinner & pared back, with a mix of grain based static texturing, which is backed a distant/ hazed storm like buffeting. As the track progresses both the static grain & the buffeting build in there thick-ness & depth, with Hal creating a great feeling of growing tension, which is underfed by quite a melancholic vibe. In the last few minutes Hal nicely thins the whole thing back down again
So we move onto disc two, and first up we have the track “Swamps Of Sadness, Part One”, and this once again starts with a sample from the film, and this time it’s just purely soundtrack based with a mixture of dramatic electronic percussion, rising yet troubled synth string melody, and a subtle bit of moody guitar work. In less than two minutes the ‘wall’ has taken hold, and the film sample slips back- this ‘wall’ is built around a taut 'n' tempered wind swirling & buffeting texture. This main element is surrounded by subtle shifting slews of small/ thinner static focused jittering, rapid swirling, and buffeting textures. Over the tracks length Hal keeps the main focus of the ‘wall’ fairly firm, yet he nicely shifts the layers in an atmospheric & effective manner.
The second track on disc two is “Swamps Of Sadness, Part One”, and this opens with a mix of marching/ epic synth soundtrack orchestration, and a rather tense dialogue scene. With-in a few minutes the ‘wall’ appears, and this time it in focuses in on a selection continually flowing ‘n’ rushing fluid like static textures- each of these layers are seemingly moving at very slightly different speeds, with a fairly narrow tonal setting of lower-to-mid range. The ‘wall’ is once again mainly firm in it’s settings, though you get nice subtle shifts in the layers of textures. Once again it’s another worthy bit of ‘wall-making’, with quite a raging yet sad feel to it.
All in all this is an worthy follow-up to projects 2013 self titled debut- with Harmon once again manging to connect the more moody & dramatic side of The Neverending Story’s plot with fairly fixed yet atmospheric walled noise. Let’s hope there’s some more releases planned, as I really like to see what he does next with the project. As of writing Altar Of Waste still have copies of this release available.