Koobaatoo Asparagus — Coping Mechanisms

Coping Mechanisms severs up two big slices of dense and unrelenting walled noise from this San Diego based project. Over the full length of this digital release we get eighty-two minutes of noise- for an ear batter, yet entrancing ride.

Koobaatoo Asparagus aka noisemaker Micheal Scott, has been active since 2010, and putting out a truly prolific selection of releases from both wall noise and harsh noise camps. With nearing three hundred and fifty titles listed under the projects name on Discogs, though I'm betting it’s more like five hundred due to many noise labels not being listed.

This release, as with much of the project's output, is a digital self-release. Cover artwork we have a picture of a naked woman standing behind net fabric, with a backdrop of a  seagull on a rocky beach outcrop. The album can be found here. 

The release features two self-titled tracks, with these each coming in at spot on the eighty-one-minute mark. So the first track is a rapid blend of rattling bass bound judders, skittering static jitters, and chalky subtone rattles. Together they are fed out into a constantly rolling yet jagged flow, which feels akin to travelling on a conveyer belt covered in shattered glass and ripped ‘n’ smashed wooden furniture. Scott keeps the textures set and fixed, and while they are not anything mould-breaking the elements run well together in an entrancing enough manner- which does keep you held throughout its forty-one-minute runtime.

The second track is a lot more compressed/ up close, as we find hack ‘n’ stabbing static flow meeting smaller grained snap ‘n’ scratch texturing. At points, these two elements nicely blur and blend to create a decidedly dizzying sonic swap of texture, that slips 'n' slides with subtle audio illusions and patterns. Of the two I’d say this ‘wall’ is my favourite due to the mentioned blurring ‘n’ blending- though both tracks are a good example of longer formed ‘wall’ craft.

In finish, this is another workmanlike, yet rewarding wall release from Mr Scott and his Koobaatoo Asparagus project. Sure it’s nothing fancy or clever, but if you enjoy plain and simple wall matter, which sucks you in, creating entrancement and sonic tricky then Coping Mechanisms will fulfil your needs.