
Ritual Stance / Wet Dream Asphyxiation - Split [Sounding Session / Void Seance - 2012]This split C30 tape brings together a track a piece from two US based HNW project. Side one features a track from Richmond, Virginia based Ritual Stance. And Side two features a track from Oregon based Wet Dream Asphyxiation. The cassette comes in a fairly thin paper monochrome sleeve that features a picture of a women’s face with her eyes closed superimposed against a woodland back drop. It’s fairly lo-fi but effective enough. First up we have the Ritual Stance, and this is entitled “Hidden, Silent, Masked Serenity”. The track opens with a mass of bleak/grey churning/ buffeting noise that’s weaved with & smaller grained noise matter that takes in whistling & jittering sub tones. The ‘wall’ very much feels like been engulfed by a freezing & battering snow/ wind storm. As the track progresses more whistling, baying & cluttering sub-tones appear with-in the ‘walls’ make-up, and this creates a wonderful feeling of get more & more sucked into the unstoppable sonic storm. All told this is a most rewarding slice of weather like walled noise. Over on side two we have the Wet Dream Asphyxiation track and this is entitled “Auxiliary Intercourse”. This ‘wall’ is a bombarding mass of reeled & churning static jitter, which is underfeed by a muffled & sucked dry low-to-mid ranged billowing drone. This track is a little more fixed ‘n’ set compared with the first side tracks, though from time to time I can make out subtle layer shifts with-in the ‘walls’ make-up, and towards it’s mid-way point the textures also seem to be slowing & splitting apart slightly too….yet the ‘wall’ never loses it’s power/depth. Where as the first side track brought to mind extreme weather this side brings to mind been stuck inside some vast network of chugging, churning & rumbling machines- it’s another very effective & brutally rewarding bit of ‘wall-making’.
So to sum-up this is a most rewarding & effective split release with both parties offering up consistent slices of dense walled noise making; that some times has subtle yet creative layer shifts with-in them.
     Roger Batty
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