Zen is a four-track wall noise split- bringing together Poland’s Olion, and UK’s Night Porter. The first act offers up three short nine-to-ten-minute tracks, while the second presents us with a single twenty-eight-minute track.

As with most of the wall noise scenes output of late this is a digital release- that is self-release by Olion. The cover artwork features a white drawing on a black background- of what looks to be some mutated monster/ creature, not unlike something you’d find in 1982’s The Thing. The release can be played/ downloaded here. 

So first up we have the three Olion tracks- which are simply named I-II.  “I” consists of a ragged bass billow/ gallop, which is edged with smaller-grained feasting static- all making for a nice urgent start to proceedings. “II” brings together a locked bass judder- with tighter skittering grain texturing. While “III” is more of a formally structured/ textured ‘wall’- blending a rapid ‘n’ constantly rolling bass noise drone, with a seemingly slightly more speeding and crisp judder. 

Lastly, we have the Night Porter track- this is untitled and runs at the twenty-eight minute and forty-eight-second mark. It’s built around a slightly off-churning / reeling mid, and smarting/ slightly twist static tone. The whole thing has a great feeling of being fed through an old machine off-kilter-ness, and from time to time one texture will overtake the other doing something very slightly different from its normal pattern- towards its end, it feels like it may completely pull itself apart.  It’s a most engaging bit of ‘wall-making’, which I could have easily listed for twice its length.

So, in summing up this split- I’d say the three Olion are decent enough examples of ‘walling’, but the Night Porter track is excellent.