Lungwash — By Myself To Myself Sacrificed
The tapes artwork features black and white pictures of root networks and swamp or snow bound bony/ leafless trees- these images fit perfectly the extremely stark, barren and weathered feel of the two tracks with-in. Somehow the project really seems to capture the pained, creepy and unwell spirit of natural in a way few projects can or have in the past. There’s something deeply primal and melancholic with-in these two tracks make–up which is difficult to quantify or describe.
The first sides untitled track starts out with a dry, grim and constantly running static drilling tone which is trailed by a stark, tired & worn-out feed back throb. As the track moves into it’s third minute the feed back throb and static drill seem to fade into the background, leaving a sparse mixture of: deathly skipping static, bleak and fragile juddering, and pained yet subtle drone matter. It almost feels like the life is being slowly sucked out of you as Lungwash expertly and atmospherically strips the track right down. By the sixth minute thirty mark it’s very sparse and bleak with just a thin atmospheric layers of mini textured jitters, crackles and judders present. A bit latter on this distant churning tone comes into the back of the sound picture, but it never really takes centre stage; with the small and bleak textural details taking your central focus.
The Second side’s untitled track starts out with a mixture of ultra bleak billowing tone and locked juddering static starkness. The bleak billowing textures sound like the most grim and hopeless winter wind through the trees sound you could imagine, and the static elements are very washed out and barren. Just like the first sides track the sound picture starts to become more distant, hollow and stripped back as the goes on. Yet there also seems a more prime evil growning feel with-in this track, as gray crackle tendrils of root like static fill up the track along with the distant drone billowing that opened the track. As it moves towards the seventh minute a battering and bleak juddering and slightly blown-out noise textures raises in the track, and in the end this takes centre stage for less then a minute. Then this very grim and cold winter rain like textured static tone takes hold in a wonderfully washed out and completely hopeless manner as the track exits.
Truly this is one of the most bleak and stark ambient noise releases I can recall ever hearing. I can see this appealing to fans of ambient HNW, as well as anyone who enjoys bleak and stark sound scaping in genreal. So act fast to pick up one of the forty hand numbered copies of this…before there all gone!