Rien — The Grey Tape
The white shelled cassette appears in a silver coloured tobacco tin- this features a stuck on monochrome label with minimal texts on & a white dotted black border on one side. Inside the box we get a fold out double sided inlay, taking in a similar selection of minimal text & border- you also get a download code, and a few black & white vinyl stickers relating to the label. Sadly this release is no longer available in its physical form- so ones only option now is a digital download.
We get two tracks in all here, each runs just shy of the twenty-minute mark, and they are simply titled I & II. "I "is an extremely nervy & constantly fliting blend of tighter & smaller jitterings, a dry hissing, and a selection of snaps & pops- together these are brought together to create a very jumpy mesh of static texturing. The track feels akin to a walled noise track compressed, stripped back & sped-up to a jumpy & nervous rate. Thorough-out one is kept held by the tracks cleverly detailed, yet coldly sparse attack- at times it almost brought to mind a less rhythmical focused take on the tightly minimal & starkly clinical electronica as released by the likes on Rasta Noton.
"II" follows the jumpy noise texturing of the first track, but really tightens things up more- with a mixture rapidly flitting static pop & rattle, smaller jittering tones, and subtle traces of muffled hiss. It keeps feeling like the whole things suddenly going to force it’s self apart with it tense jumping momentum, but it never does as it constantly keeps rolling along in its rapid-yet- highly nervy manner. The tracks just as effective as the first side, yet nicely moves the whole tight-yet- sparse texturing vibe in a slightly different direction.
The Grey Tape is another extremely worthy release from Rien- which once again highlights the projects skill for creating creative static texturing that sits in the more stripped & pared-back side of things.