James Shearman — The God Of The Sea

The God Of The Sea finds this long-time wall noise scenester offering a rather primal and abstract wall, with both bassy batters & textural knocks, scrapes, and swirls.

I’d hope that even if you only have a passing interest in the euro/ UK wall noise scene, you’ll know Mr Shearman. He’s been active in the scene since the early 2010s, with material released under his own name as well as under project names like A Raja's Mesh Men. He runs the respected/ long run HNW Netlabel that put out this release. As well as being behind setting up several noise shows around the London area, and running the great experimental/ noise label Small Worm.

The single track featured here comes in at just over the twenty-one-minute mark. It opens with a mix of distant, muffled bass- which is skittered with jumping knocks; as this progresses, the buffling/ blowout bass weight of the whole thing increases- and just at the edge of the sonic field we get brief wafts of old-time dance hall music.

As things move on, the bass becomes even more bothersome/ sluggishly bullish in its attack, with this wonderful primal hack, knock, and scrape detail on top. I guess things do become slightly more consistent in their pattern run as the track progresses- though the very murky/ hazed feel of the wall never shifts.

It must be a good few years since I’d last heard something from Mr Shearman. And The God of the Sea is certainly a distinctive blend of bothersome bass weight & primal knock ‘n’ scrape.