Richard Ramirez — Volume 2

Here’s the second in a series of volumes which I hope never end: a six-CD boxset of remastered early Richard Ramirez cassettes. Hopefully, I don’t need to introduce Ramirez, but for the uninitiated, his vast discography is an essential foundation stone for harsh noise walls and indeed harsh noise. The releases in this set sometimes play with the boundaries between those two genres, and beyond that are simply great examples of 1990’s harsh noise.

The set comes in a cardboard clam box (though I’m reviewing a digital version) with individual card wallets for each CD, with a poster featuring some promotional images, alongside a great live photo of Ramirez (and someone else who remains a mystery), and poetic liner notes from Dominick Fernow. If you wish to save time reading what follows, this is a brilliant boxset, but I think most of you reading this will already know that without hearing it.

The set begins with Supply And Shutdown, originally released on cassette by Deadline Recordings in 1994; it features two tracks named part I and II of the title and both are just over 30 minutes in length. ‘Supply And Shutdown Pt. 1’ is a fast-paced piece of wall noise that tests the line between harsh noise and harsh noise wall. It features lots of sections with reverb, as well as plentiful amounts of feedback; the reverb adds a nice sense of murk in places, whilst the feedback varies between sheets that cut through the noise and kinetic squalls that dart about, piercing and dissonant. Away from the main thrust of the noise, there are some beautiful crackling textures. The second part begins with beautifully overloaded bass frequencies, breaking up, churning, and spitting forth amazing mid-frequency crackle; it feels like it’s cut from the same cloth from the previous part, and again, its quite speedy, but here it is more oppressive and smothering. Near the halfway point it briefly pares back to a bass tone, with crackles dancing around it, but it’s a brief respite, as the noise textures jump back in again; it’s a trick that repeats, and it effectively divides the track into sections. The final stages have some ringing treble spree that really cuts through, alongside delay churn and twiddle. Aspects like this perhaps push the entire album decidedly to the harsh noise side of things, but that’s very welcome: one of the things I have always loved about Ramirez’s work are the releases that blur harsh noise and static noise.  

Nature’s Afterbirth is up next, again released in 1994 by Deadline Recordings. The first piece, ‘Untitled’ is nearly 32 minutes of, for me, completely exhilarating harsh noise: whilst there are HNW layers weaving in and out of the track, and in the latter stages that feel is more pronounced, the bulk of the track is incredibly fast-moving, dynamic, and colourful harsh noise. I think this is amongst the most kinetic Ramirez I’ve ever heard. Electronic synth noise sounds, feedback, bass saturation, junk noise, delay pedal twirls, rattling textures that linger briefly, possibly even vocals (either that or a sample) - all stretched and stressed to their limits. At points, I actually thought it might break into outright power electronics, but that remains just a threat. However, it’s a wonderful track, with some 30-second passages that have more interesting textures and sounds in them than many entire noise releases by other people. The next track on Nature’s Afterbirth, also called ‘Untitled’, is ten minutes of slightly more settled harsh noise, using much the same ingredients as before but with a tighter focus and dynamic. A creeping bass texture cuts in and out, whilst feedback, looping synth noise, and more vocals and dirty sounds splinter and fly. ‘Intermission’, up next, is just that: 53 seconds of heavily processed noises, possibly using tape manipulation. The last track on the album, also called ‘Untitled’, takes the electronic and synth elements of the previous pieces and really leans into them, with lots of primitive electronic skree, sometimes aggressive and harsh, sometimes having a more lo-fi charm - indeed, I don’t think I’m reaching when I say that there’s a hint of Maurizio Bianchi’s early work here, including the crude looping of Sacher-Pelz. Overall, the track is the most focused piece on Nature’s Afterbirth, with a sense of genuine exploration.

The third and fourth discs contain Barebacking, released on cassette by Extraction Records in 1998. The first starts with ‘Barebacking’, nearly 40 minutes of superlative textural work. The track is dominated by low end rumble and churn, and early on the piece establishes a stereo split, which is both unusual and effective. Over these juddering bass frequencies, which themselves slowly change, different elements rise and fall: detailed treble crackles, electro pulses, and buried piano music. Halfway through, the electro pulsing takes centre stage, before becoming noisy and overloaded, presenting a wall of trebly, hissy, skree underpinned by fidgeting bass movements; these bass layers then dominate before falling again, and a really effective, skittering, mid-frequency wall emerges, speeding loosely along to practically the end - one of the nicest passages in the entire boxset. ‘Cockpump’ follows, and starts off with persistent rhythmic hits, which sound like distorted junk noise, accompanied by intermittent electronic chirps - again very different from the stereotypical notion of Ramirez as a creator of static noise. Throughout the piece, electronic noise bursts in and out, shrill and primitive synth sounds, before a low, raw, bass tone is introduced; the track ends moving through varying sections of harsh noise creating by cutting between the aforementioned elements. Next up is ‘Tu Libertad’, featuring Yoshiki Takizawa; again, this centres electronic, synthy sounding textures, riding speeding, chaotic wall textures. As the piece proceeds, it begins to fluctuate, paring back to simpler synth tones or noises, before again erupting into layered noise. The fourth disc, continuing Barebacking, contains ‘Live At The All Male Adult Cinema’ Parts 1 and 2. The first part plays with thick layers of noise, small textural details, electronic chirruping, and buried sounds, moving through sections that manipulate these differently; after a while these sounds are interrupted by lurching, collapsing bass tones, before the entire track cuts to percussive synth sounds and proceeds to end with nicely visceral feedback. The second part starts off with great looping synth, again reaching towards power electronics; for a good while the track is quite settled and focussed, exploring unsettling bass churn; this becomes punctuated by raw electronic outbreaks, and parts of the track feature quite frenetic cutting in and out of elements. The end section plays with low obliterating noise and radio-like sounds - tones rather than static - and by the end things have become genuinely broken up and scratchy; it’s a piece that really shows how wide Ramirez’s full range of sounds and approaches is. Again, this is a great album for harsh noise heads who like raw primitive sounds, coupled with an approach that is sometimes primitive, sometimes more settled.

This Angel's Rusted Halo is the subject of the penultimate disc, a tape released by BloodLust! in 1996 featuring two half-hour long pieces. ‘Virgin Mary's Wire Meshed Gown’ is another barrage of wholesome harsh noise, but the more interesting things occur when the intensity is dropped. It starts with noise and feedback, utilising that tight delay/flanger type sound - I’m never a fan of this, but here it does sound organic and grimy. However, the nice moments start not long after, with the sound being strangled, becoming starved and weak; this happens a few times, and it’s great on a timbral level but also dynamic level. Around the eight minute mark, there’s an effective section where Ramirez pulls and stretches the sounds, constantly shifting the eqs; followed by another passage near halfway marked by jittery wah-noise and swoops into bass churn - again very effective. The remainder of the track plays out with impressive sections of unpleasant and aggressive treble spurt, and bass saturations and hum. The second work, ‘A Chemical Wedding,’ uses similar sounds but feels more settled to me - it also features vocal samples very strongly; indeed, it starts with distorted samples - and more wah-ed noise. The vocal samples weave in and out of the whole piece, and whilst not all of them are decipherable, some of them are definitely religious in nature; the samples are accompanied by more harsh skree, with the most effective elements being trebly, shrieking noise - sometimes held onto, sometimes used to punctuate the sound field - and low end drones, slow and wavering. Often these bass elements sound like stumbling loops, creating a more static sense of dread, and that feel is carried over into some of the vocal processing which conjures a murky nightmarish atmosphere. Away from these more restrained moments, Ramirez cuts between dynamic noises and textures, slipping from one to another whilst layers of low-mid frequency crunch trundle away underneath. The whole tape is another grand slice of primitive harsh noise, marked out by its persistent deployment of vocal samples.

The final disc presents Mistaken Genital Apparatus, originally released on cassette in 1993 by the magnificently named Stinky Horse Fuck label. ‘Rip The Vagina Up To The Ass’ is a fourteen minute track dominated by wall noise sounds and approaches - but still very open and kinetic, it’s not monolithic noise at all. The main ingredients are fizzy treble, with speeding high-mid frequency crackle and a fast low-end rumble, and these aspects stutter, shift, and cut to wash. As it develops, Ramirez explores some exquisite treble crackle, before turning to feedback and junk noise at the end: an incredible album opener. Following this, ‘Art Of Terrorism’ comes in at around four and a half minutes, and uses this short time to concentrate on trebly textures, sometimes obliterated to the point of becoming wash; at points it’s akin to hearing someone spraying a hose, with bursts of treble breaking out through the speakers. This is all sprinkled with squalls of incredibly stinging feedback: a really accomplished and focussed track. The eleven minutes of ‘Blood-Stained Sex Blanket’ are dominated by really thick high-mid frequency walls, compressed and tight, in fact I think the piece might be based around loops, hypnotic and lurching. Whilst it ends with sparring between feedback, hum, and noise, there are sections before this which cut to very quiet volumes, or pedal hiss, and these again are great examples of Ramirez’s ear for sound and structure. Next up are ‘Removes Excess Clit Part 1’ and ‘Removes Excess Clit Part 2’; the former is a fantastic lump of fast, scourging, filthy harsh noise, fuelled by junk noise and feedback - at points I’m sure you can ‘hear’ the room and this adds another level of harshness to it. There is a lot of screaming too, with feedback bursting back in whenever it can, and the track plays out to really frantic harsh noise - it’s not Masonna but it’s also little distance from him. ‘Removes Excess Clit Part 2’ is similar but ramped up on either side of the dynamism spectrum: there are parts where it’s more settled, even static, and moments (mainly near the beginning) where it’s perhaps even wilder and more chaotic. The final track of the boxset, ‘Penis Drained Victim’ is nearly four minutes of feedback manipulated with a delay pedal, and yes, it’s as beautifully simple and painful as that suggests. It’s a fitting end to a fine tape.

This is the purest of gold, and like I said, this is a series that needs to never end (I realise this scenario involves Richard Ramirez, New Forces, and myself all being cursed with immortality…) The tapes here combine enthralling primitive harsh noise with approaches exploring beyond simple bludgeoning skree, and they all have different qualities and I’d struggle to pick out a favourite; they’re also historically important documents of the discography of someone who, despite their status in the scene, never, to my mind, receives the appreciation they deserve. Ramirez is frustrating in the sense that it’s nigh impossible to keep up with such a prolific output, though the use of different projects to compartmentalise different approaches means it’s possible to at least collect your favoured project, and sets like this really are vital ventures. Roll on Volume Three.