Werewolf Jerusalem - Carnal Violence [Robert & Leopold - 0000]“Carnal Violence” is a short, atmospheric and surprisingly approachable piece of HNW from one of Richard Ramirez most celebrated and popular projects. On offer here is a c10 that features a five minute track on each side of tape. The tapes nicely presented with pro-printed black and white labels that feature scrawled pencil or paint like textures. The tapes sleeve is once more printed in black and white on a nice piece cream art card. The sleeve cover features close-up of two or three metal like prongs The first side track is entitled “Part One (Hunted By The Night)” and it starts out with this cold and stabbing, tightly juddering stop ‘n’ start element that’s sound almost industrialized guitar like in it’s tone. This main element brings to mind the guitar type textures Merzbow used on some of the tracks on the 24 Hours - A Day Of Seals box set. As the track goes on the ‘wall’ becomes less stabbing and more churning with the cold guitar like texture being stretched, bent and phased in and out over a droning yet urgent static tonality. This track is certainly quite different from much of Ramirez’s work with this project, and as I said in the opening paragraph it’s strangely approachable and coldly memorable in it’s feel.
On side two we have “Part Two (Escaping The Killer's Grip)” and this finds the up front and cold guitar element of side ones track in a more muffled, juddering and stark form. It almost sounds like Ramirez has fed the original first sides track through a fog of aging and starkly battering effects. The tracks ok, through it's not really different enough from the first sides track to work as a stand alone track in it's own right. Maybe you could say it’s a starked-out remix of the first track.
So certainly this C10 is an interesting excise in an more approachable and atmospheric take on the HNW form, it’s just a pity the second side is just really a stark grained rehash of the first sides track. Roger Batty
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