Gäap — The First Chapter
Gäap brings Ramirez together with the rather mysterious Chanel Garcia, whom I’m guessing is a female noise artists from Texas. The only other release she is connected with, according to discogs, is The Red Lights Girls/ Amer split on breaching static from early on this year- where she provided the source elements for one of the tracks.
The sound on offer over the two tracks offered here I guess is best described as darkly surreal mixture of grainy/ grey noise drones, layers of all manner of murky dialogue, film samples, radio chatter etc, and churning noise bound industrial texturing.
The first of the two tracks is entitled “Ritual Lamentation”, and it comes in at just under the seven & a half minute mark. The track starts with a mournful ‘n’ grey mixture slo-mo chugging ‘n’ droning noise tone, buried foreign radio voices & jaunting accordion music, along with of slowed flicks of industrialized noise sub-tones. As the track progresses more weird sample elements drift by like chicken sounds, weird amassed moans, and warbling old black & white movie soundtracks. At times there are amassed dense piles of noise tones, and at others the noise tones fall into a slow bouncing almost harmonic patterns, but mostly the track just drifts ‘n’ ebbs along
The second track is entitled “Dhuhr”, and this comes in at around the eleven mintue mark. The feel here is slighty more urgent though there's still a muffled & aged feel to the track. It opens with a looped juddering lo-fi semi-industrial noise tone, churning squawking like textures, crow like calls, and muffled amassed school class room voices. Once again as the track progresses more often weird sound elements drift by like: drifting harmonies, radio voices, chirpy 1950’s music snippets, & all manner of playful noise bashers ‘n’ knocks. Also you get sudden spurts of more intense seared noise tone, sudden noise sustains & billowing rolls of hissing noise, but pretty soon it drops back down to it’s original grey trundling along pace. The looped juddering noise tone stays pretty much constant through-out, but other the elements & sounds slow shifting in & out of view.
Both tracks here have a rather subdued & hazed noise vibe to them with a surreal & industrial edge running through them too, not the kind of thing you often hear from Mr Ramirez. All told this is an enjoyable little release that I can see appealing to those who like their noise more murky/ sludge with quirky/surreal samples mixed in.