This is one of those Harsh Noise Wall releases that will try the patience of purists (particularly adherents to the “European” style): its very, very active; to the extent that it might be considered Harsh Noise. Whilst it does twist and turn - or, indeed, twist and churn - the overwhelming concern remains a textural one; and in that spirit it is most certainly HNW. The structure of the piece is constantly morphing and does so from the off: within the first few minutes, we move from a speeding wall of fizzing crackle and bass surge, with piercing near-feedback tones, to the same bare low rumble with a nice (almost rhythmic) flapping sound over it; this is followed shortly by interjections of loud signal hum and then the entrance of a nice, dry, crumbly texture. This essentially sets the tone for all that follows: waves of feedback-like noise, tight, churning textures, larger sections of signal hum-esque tones with pretty crackle detail dancing around them, subdued synth-like throbs and sighs; even muffled, buried voices. Not all the passages work, certainly; near the forty minute mark, there are sections of washy noise which do very little for me, but these are soon followed by a passage of very dry, “electronic” sounding textures - grainy noise with background scuffing - which do hold my ear for a while.

There is a sense with “Sada Abe” that it moves too quickly to hold my attention; there are many textural passages on here that could easily be teased out for much longer and, to my mind, greater effect. Instead, the release moves around fairly quickly; skirting the edges of Harsh Noise - in fact, at one point, there’s a section of straining, looping churn with skree and very active noise elements that pushes over into outright Harsh Noise for me. Most of the material is of a high standard, though there are passages which are less compelling; but I would, personally, have preferred to have heard them left to run longer. Though, interestingly, the one point at which the project does adopt an overt, “traditional” HNW structure (the end section), is actually rather underwhelming. “Sada Abe” might perhaps serve well as an HNW release for those more committed to Harsh Noise interests.. (Note: I would be very interested to know the working method that the three projects adopted to create this release.)