Mutations — One Thousand Dead Swans
Mutations is a fairly new project from Melbourne, Australia- and has seemingly been active since early 2020. Thus far it's put out around ten releases- many of these have been digital downloads. Theme wise the project seems to move from sexual fetish, serial killers, & military operations- I’m not entirely sure what the theme is of this release, as the glitched-out artwork doesn’t seem to relate to a theme.
The five tracks here each run between seven and twenty minutes apiece- and as noise releases go this is fairly varied in both it’s attack, and textures used- with moments of almost harmonic tones coming into play occasional, as well as atmospheric vibes. Though this is certainly not a noise release for a newbie, as some of the tones used are very nerve slicing high/ intense.
The release opens with the spot on fifteen minutes of “Another Falling Out Of Love With The World”- it starts out with lulling womb-like drifts & knocks. Fairly soon the low-end has become more bothersome & brisk; with the addition of skittering grainy feast-then-splutter on top. By the three and a half minute mark things have started to really sear & crack- as we get blends of deep buffet with dragged out-rip, which are edged with high tone grates. As we move on we get nice shifts between more even-yet-tense wall-bound noise-making with lows & mids, and searing-to-sweeping higher-pitched texturing which moves between all-out piecing & waveringly psychedelic. The track is a perfect balance between rewarding & creative wall moments, and building-to-moody harsh noise- a great opener, and a great example of how to bring to wall & harsh noise together in a cohesive & rewarding manner.
By track three “Ebb And Flow” we find just over twelve & a half minutes of wavering, throbbing, and ringing noise scaping that is pulled in a both audio seared & psychedelic manner. The longest track here is “Towards The End” which is just shy of twenty-one minutes mark- it starts out with deep & buzzing almost harmonic bass hovers, then moves off into slowly undulating rumble 'n' buffing. These are topped by shifting & dramatic addition of grainy-to-rushing high tonal sweeps- that nicely move between seared cosmic, shreddingly moodiness, and all-out textural slicing 'n' dice.
In finishing, I must say I was most impressed & taken by One Thousand Dead Swans. It’s a release I’ve played numerous times over the last few weeks, and it’s most certainly one of the best examples of wall-meets-harsh noise I’ve heard in some time. I very much look forward to hearing more from Mutations, as the project certainly has its own distinctive take on noise making- which is both brain slicing intense-yet often atmospherically appealing too.