It’s between Free As Dead- which is the ‘funerary chapel organ’ project of Frenchman Romain Perrot of Vomir, Roro Perrot, FALOT.  And J.Adolphe- which is the dark ambient/ creepy noise/ industrial project of Jan Warnke, who also runs Geraeuschmanufaktur- the German label this release appears on. Each artists offers up a single twelve-minute track- one is passable, while other is frankly terrible.

So let start on side A & the lesser of the two sides. Here we have an untitled track from  Free As Dead, and simply put this is extremely grating, painful monotonous, and truly ham-fisted. The track consists of badly played keyboard set  on church organ preset- this is fed through an amp, and we a get series of wonky  & truly no-thrills notes played over & over again- at times the pace slows, at others it speeds up, but throughout it remains painful( in a bad way) & talent-less.  As many long-time readers will know I’ve been a long time fan of Mr. Perrot's main wall-noise project Vomir, and I’ve also enjoyed his deranged ‘n’ unwell folk project, Roro Perrot. But I’m afraid pretty much everything I’ve heard from Free As Dead is terrible, and sadly this is another prime example of this project dire-ness…the tracks is in no way moody or creepy, it’s presented in such bland & grating manner, and simply put it’s damn awful.

So we flip over to side B, we have the J.Adolphe, and once again this is untitled. The twelve-minute track is a blend of wonky & slightly pitched shifted dungeon synth march, weird mumbled male & female vocals,  creaking ‘n’ buzzing sounds, sexual moans, and sudden drops into uneasy ambient drift. Apparently, the dungeon synth elements are played by someone called Thorsten Soltau- so I’m guessing J. Adolphe is layering & shifting the original DS elements with effect pedals, samples etc. The track fairly eventful & shifting and the more surreal elements add an interesting edge to proceedings. But ultimately it feels a little structure-less, and basically sounds like someone messing around with DS elements. I guess it works in context with the first sides track, but that’s about it.

I’ve really tried to get & enjoy Free As Dead, as I’ve got so much time for Mr. Perrot other work- but I’m afraid that everything I’ve heard from the project is grating, badly put together, and not in the least bit creepy( which I’m guessing it’s meant to be). So as you’d expect this split wasn’t going to be a big favorite with me. Sure the J.Adolphe tracks ok, but nothing to write home about.  I wanted to give this a two & a half mark, purely for the J.Adolphe track- but as we don’t do half’s I’ve gone for a straight two.