Raven — Life in Ruins

Serbian based Raven has been active since 2013 releasing a fairly large body of work that’s moved from harsh noise to all-out walled noise. According to Discogs the projects released nearing 40 full lengths, plus around the same number of shorter releases/ etc. Life In Ruins is a 3inc CDR from April of this year, and it presents us with a minute sixteen mintue example of ear-searing & seesawing harsh noise.

The CDR appears on Florida based noise label Inner Demons, and this comes in an edition of 42 copies. The stamped CD comes in a mini clear slip, and this features murky & monochrome artwork.

Since this project started I’ve heard bits & bobs of their back catalog, mainly staying more towards my personal prevalence for walled noise. The self-titled track here has moments of wall-ish-ness, but really I’d say this was classic sounding harsh noise.

The track here comes in at just under the sixteen minute, and is built around a series of seesawing noise tones- these move searing & roasting mids, squealing & baying highs, and fleeting lower tone cable buzzers. The whole thing felt a bit like one of Merzbow more simplistic moments- as there’s not much shift or progression to the tracks make-up, aside of course from seesawing structure.

On the whole Life in Ruins is passable, if not a particularly original sounding example of harsh noise craft. I’d say if you enjoy no-nonsense noise making- then give this a look, not sure if you’d get too much from this if you looking for walls, mind.