Marchenoir - Les Males Nuictz [Ominous Recordings - 2017]Les Males Nuictz is a C60/digital download that presents the listener with two barren, extremely lo-fi, and coldly crude slabs of walled-noise. Marchenoir is one of the more recent(ish) ventures from respected French wall-maker Julien Skrobek( Ghost, Ecco, Ruine, etc). I’m reviewing the tape version of the release- sadly this is now out of print, so the download is the only option at present. Marchenoir started in mid-2017 and has thus far released around five releases. The feel of both the ‘walls’ & the artwork is very much focusing in on the extremely barren, monochrome, and terminal bleak. The projects logo has quite an underground black metal feel to it, as does the releases cover artwork- and this goes in line with Skrobek recent interest in BM, though sonically the projects sound is very much wall focused.
The plain black cassette features scratched-on side numbers, and this comes in a single sided cover that takes in a college like selection of antiquated prints of women with demons, whom I’m guessing are witches. The tape release appeared in July of last year in an edition of 15 copies, and as I’ve already mentioned this now out of print.
Each of the two tracks take up a whole side of tape, and first of these is “Crypte”. This ‘wall’ is a harshly grim & starkly battering blend of rapidly rattling & cluttering mids, on a seared-yet- muffled bed of constantly feasting grey static. It sounds like a recording of a cruel & unending winter storm made from with in a skeletal & open to the sky barn- all recorded on the aged & worn tape deck. This is the walled-noise form, reduced down to it’s most coldly barren and numbingly bleak form.
Over onto the second side & we have ‘Les Males Nuictz’. Here we have an ultra stark & coldly seared mixture of a constantly rolling grind, spinning ‘n’ coarsely circulating judder, and a slight rip bound jitter. It feels akin to a sonic blend of barren fire flicker, continual bone grinding, and the sound of old leather tires on uneven copestones. And really it deepens the bleakness a stage further from the first sides track.
Les Males Nuictz is a release for those wall-heads who are seeking out the most terminally barren, freezing, and ferocious HNW they can source. You need to enter into to this release expecting just that, and you won’t be disappointed. Roger Batty
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