Here is a short tape from Mutual Aid, featuring a five-minute track each from Dosis Letalis and Beggin For Oxys. A tape this short might not look like a good purchase - particularly factoring in postage if it’s being sent from abroad - but I’ve always enjoyed hearing short noise pieces: they focus the artist/project, especially if they would normally produce much longer recordings. Whilst Beggin For Oxys is a new name for me, I’ve heard some Dosis Letalis before, and they are certainly an artist who more usually record longer works.

The first track, ‘No Rest for the Restless’, is indeed by Dosis Letalis, normally known for pursuing Harsh Noise Wall and its related sub-genres. Here, Dosis Letalis delivers five minutes of stuttering, obliterated noise - more a subdued The Rita than a raging Vomir. The sounds are often starved, strangulated but also consistently solid and hard; in geological terms, it’s a rain of shards falling off a speeding vehicle, with the odd larger boulder bouncing off now and then. It’s a really engaging piece, and despite my comments in the introduction, something I would have happily listened to for longer.

Beggin For Oxys’ track, ‘Several Informal Requests Resonating Simultaneously’, is a collage of several distinct pieces (I lose count how many) which begin at Powerviolence but blur into Noisecore due to the lo-fi recordings. The recording quality does vary, with thick, fully blown out songs colliding with thinner pieces that might even be recorded on a ghettoblaster. On the face of it, Beggin For Oxys is, therefore, a much different proposition to Dosis Letalis, but given its lo-fi quality some of the more Noisecore-esque tracks rely more on textures than any instrumental interplay - I could recognise only one ‘riff’ as such, indeed the majority of the tracks are purely drums and vocals. The songs are short and breakneck-paced, with blastbeats and screaming vocals, with the one riff appearing during a brief, slow breakdown - also my favourite moment of the track. The shortness of the piece works in Beggin For Oxys’ favour here, making ‘Several Informal Requests…’ a little blast of noise and energy.

This is a fair little split, and the emphasis must be on ‘little’. The Dosis Letalis side is a tight piece of Harsh Noise (Wall); solid but something I’d like to have heard more of; the Beggin For Oxys side is a perfect length, but ultimately unsatisfying in content. Fortunately, the short length of the tape means that the Dosis Letalis track is never far away. Overall, a good reminder of the virtues of short noise, and indeed HNW, tracks…