Namazu Dantai — Black Lily In A White Pond
On offer here are two sides of C20 tape & each side takes in a shifting & often quite complex yet very brutal ‘wall’ of noise. I guess you could call this 'thinking mans HNW' because like his other projects Mandler has put a lot of work into the layers & textures of the noise here, the tapes title & the bright yet slightly un-nevering artwork by Mike Haley of wether. On side one we find the track ‘Black Lily’ which drills in at first with thick, impenetrable & massive storm grey static tone wall of sound. But pretty soon it moves onto slightly thinner & more shifting yet still thick ‘n’ brutal collection of tone walls that take-in: almost semi harmonic static sweeps, roaring judders, ripping tone bomb blasts, slowed & distant junk metal clatters and all manner of wall like swirling attacks.
Onto side two & we have ‘White Pound’ which cracks in with a deeper static road drilling 'n' juddering tone which is licked by a slightly higher pitched ‘glass shaking together’ pitch. As the track goes on Mandler expertly shifts the juddering pitches just slight at first before he opens the track up into a little loser & more roaring jittering tone attack. This track doesn’t swirl or shift as much as the first sides track, but it still drifts & melts it’s ‘wall’ in quite a heady & seared violent psychedelic manner.
Namazu Dantai take on ‘wall making’ is distinctively swirling, morphing & often brutally psychedelic in its attack. It’s great to see Mandler putting his considerable mind altering noise talents into a more Harsh Noise Wall form & I can’t wait to hear what he does next with this project.