
Vide Médian - Runway Mask [Ominous Records - 2018]Runway Mask in C90/ digital wall-noise release that is themed around the vapidity & gender blanking of the fashion industry. The two-track release presents two walls, which are built around cleverly detailed-yet-numbing examples of HNW- that perfectly encapsulate the releases themes. This release appeared at the tail end of last year on Swedish label Ominous Records- the physical edition of the tape was seventeen copies- but these have now all sold out. The black shelled cassette featured a plain white label on one side and comes in a sleeve which features a picture of a featureless face covered in wide fishnet webbing- all in all, a nice looking item that fits the album's ideas.
Each of the tracks here lasts for spot on the forty-five-minute mark- so we do get all told ninety minutes of wall noise here. The first track here is entitled "Body"- it brings together a set, yet busy wall built around a series of slices, rolls, and crackles- together these create a nicely encasing & engrossing track. With-in the dense-yet- perfectly mastered wall I can make of a wide low-end rolling, a constantly circling ice skate like slicing, and a series of small snaps- so one's mind can decide to follow one or another of these texturally trails for entrancement; or just let the whole thing wash over you.
The second track here is entitled "Object"- this is once again a very densely detailed wall. We get even more textures here- with the wall been made up of the following- a slurred & grainy rolling texture, a choppy & fleeting feast, smaller jittering & knocking descents, and a thinner selection of slightly off patterns slices. At times this track can become a bit too densely layered for its own good- meaning that my attention did drift at moments, thankfully these don’t last too long. Once again this is an interestingly built wall- of the two I’d say I enjoyed the first more, purely down to the more focused & defined layering.
Vide Médian is a Paris based project that’s been active since around 2016- and it’s slowly but surely releasing both self-released digital titles, and physical releases- as far as I recall Runway Mask is the first release I’ve heard from the project- and for the most part I’m impressed by the extremely dense & busy feel of the walls here, and look forward to checking out more stuff from the project in the near future.      Roger Batty
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