Griz+zlor — Nocturnal Beasts
The oversized A5 booklet is 24 pages long and features black glossy ink on black paper. To start with we have a brief yet cryptic introduction page about the project, then the rest of the booklet is made up of series plates; firstly there’s an Owl, then a Rhino, A Tasmania Devil and lastly a bat. Each subject has ten or eleven pages to it’s self, with of two identical images on each featuring creature or animals; these move closer to each other plate by plate, then complete interlocking by the end of each series. All told it’s an effective and foreboding booklet that adds an extra edge to the CDR’s “Walls”.
So onto the CDR and it’s tracks follow the sequence of the animals/ creatures in the booklet so first up we have “The Owl” which starts out with a tight jittering wall of stuck and speeding thunder roar. As the track goes on Griz+zlor adds subtle static details & textural turns to the thick walls, such as: rain like lashing dwells, distant cable discharge, electro locked judders ect. So the track slow morphs and changers over it’s nineteen minute length. Next track we have is “The Rhino” which starts out with deep down rumbling earthquake like ‘wall’ of tone. As the track goes on an off-patten jitter ‘n’ roar is added which in the end becomes the predominant element to the ‘wall’ , but in time this is slowly replaced by a run-away stream train fast static chug.
The third track is entitled “Devils From Tasmania” and starts out with repetitive and wheel like sounding static loops, with a smaller stuck jitter appears on top of this main tone. But instead of morphing onto this the track stays relatively locked compared with the other tracks, it’s only in it’s last seven or so minutes that the ‘wall’ really starts to change shape and texture- then there’s quite a few shifts and changers in the textures.
Lastly we have “Bats” which starts out as a very tight and almost rapid wing flapping like ‘wall’ of jitter. Soon the tracks jittering starts become more agitated, and seemingly faster with a more chugging thunder under slice to the loop. At just over the thirteen minute mark it suddenly switchers to a mix of deep hole roaring drone and stuck smaller static jitters, which really stay in place until the track ends, though the jitter does seem to become more central to the ‘wall’
So in finishing up “Nocturnal Beasts” is a bleakly arty booklet and CDR set which nicely puts across its morphing and changing concept in both audio and visual form. The CDR is let slightly let down in places by a few of the tracks that seem a little lacklustre and miss that all important moorish element, but on the whole this is a nicely presented and thought-out visual and sonic project which certainly shows the more art bound possibilites of the HNW genre.