Lord Cernunnos — Mata Hari

Mata Hari is the first release I’ve heard in a little while from this Everett, Washington-based wall noise project. Though going from their Bandcamp page, they have been fairly active of late. The digital release features a single twenty-five-minute track- bringing together a galloping low end with crispy clappings ‘n’ cluttering clusters of mids.

The release takes its name from a 1900s Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan who was convicted of being a spy for Germany during World War I. She was executed by a firing squad in France in October 1917. Cover art: we get a monochrome photo of Mata dancing between four other seated women.

The dead-on twenty-five-minute wall nicely dwells on a battering & slightly baying low end, with cluttering subtones. It all sounds akin to a mass of horses galloping through an enclosed valley- you can almost see the haze of dust and taste the grit between your teeth.

Sure, the ‘wall’ is not the most original or distinctive example of the genre- but there’s a feeling of both urgency and rewarding constriction.