Ghost/The Structure — split
First a little bit of a grumble about the packaging of this release- as already mentioned in come packaged inside a black tape warped folder- this is sealed all the way round with no indication which side the enter flap for the cdr sleeve is, so as a result I had to cut round two sides of the packaging which rather ruined the whole thing!....it’s an interesting idea to put release in sealed form, but you’ve got indicate how to get in the thing otherwise you land up with a ruined bit of packaging…anyway moan over lets get onto what’s inside.
First up we have a twenty minute track from Frances Ghost, and this is entitled “Plague”. The track offers up a fairly low volume ‘wall’ that sits somewhere between ambient HNW, eerier sound scaping, and subdued roasting walled noise. The tracks built around: a constant flame roasting judder, a repetitive semi-aquatic licked knocking or billowing texture, and buried underneath these two tones is very malevolent mixture of hell like sounding yet harmonic pitch bays ‘n’ twists. Ghost builds these three elements into a very eerier, enchanting & unsettling ‘wall’- the two more audible tones creating a moorish focus and the barely heard malevolent pitch bends creating a very tangible feeling of dread, as if your hiding in a cupboard as some dark & otherworldly ritual carries on in the other room.
So up lastly we have a track from seemingly scene newcomer The structure, who so far has put out two self release CDR’s in 2010 & 2011, as well as taken part in Breaching Static’s sliver top series with another CDR release. Their track here is entitled "Pale And Loathsome Shapes", and it comes in at just over the twenty minute mark. This track starts out been built around a persistent, hypnotic & creepy mixture of rolling ‘n’ knocking ball bearing like dwells & a buzzing ‘n’ drilling s analogue synth sustain. As the track goes into it’s 4th minute the rolling textures start to sound more like sea crashing in on a night time beach, and the buzzing & drilling texturing becomes more rapid & intense. By the 8th minute things seem to start to ease back towards more ambient walled noise territory, but there’s still very much a creepy & edgy feeling to proceedings thanks to rapidly spinning yet thinning ball bearing like tones . This edge starts to fade around the 10th minute with the ‘wall’ drifting in further AHNW territory as it’s thinned down to a mixture of slowly descending aquatic rub ‘n’ muffle, and focused ‘n’ slowed static grain sustain. All told it’s a truly great slice & spellbinding slice of AHNW/ atmospheric HNW.
So to sum up two very effective, chilling & engrossing slices of AHNW/ atmospheric HNW, it’s just a pity the packaging was'nt a bit better throught-out then this would be a faultless release.