James Nathan Powell — Aubin

Aubin is a recent two-track release from Arkansas-based wall noise creator James Nathan Powell. It takes in two twenty-seven minutes examples of dense  & detailed static texturing.

The digital release appears on London’s HNW netlabel. And artwork wise we get a murky/ fairly abstract picture of what looks like a thin barren tree, with the moon behind it. The release can be found just here. 

James Nathan Powell has been creating wall noise since 2021-  amassing coming on for fifty releases, thus far.  And oddly/ shamefully this is my first ever taster of his work, as I normally try to keep up with new wall makers, but seemingly he slipped by me.

Each of the tracks here has exact runtime of twenty-seven minutes and twenty-four seconds. The first track is entitled “I Know Who I Am” here we find a tightly woven and rapid mix of slightly rumbling rips, skittering/ slicing tones, and some slight hissing subtones. The ‘wall’ has a rewarding enclosing quilty to it, which over time really creates the feel of a narrowing/reducing space. With my mind conjuring up images of a razor blade ribbed room, where a full-sized Papier-mâché presentation of a human body is been thrown around- its newspaper skin ripping to spurt- then-drip oily and rancid fluid.

Next/ finally we have “Who I Am” here we find a rapid and battering blend of beaded bass hack, back ‘n’ forth rip, and a descending hack- which is seemingly running at a different pace from the rest of the textures. This track increases the feeling of rapidly constricting encasement, and at points/ when your focus too much it almost feels like you are on the cusps of starting to panic. Visually I’m getting imagery of many strange fist-sized flesh ‘n’ vein balls being caught & thrown by two long lines of figures- odd imagery I know, but that’s what I’m getting.

I must say I was very impressed by both tracks on Aubin, and Powell's textural prowess & generally wall noise composition skills. This is one of those times I wish we did half marks at M[m] as I really wanted to give this a three & a half mark, but instead, I’ve gone for a very strong three, which is moving towards a four. I will most certainly be checking out more of Mr Powell’s work!.