Scarlet Diva — You Were, For Me, That Night, Everything I Always

Here we have a new two-track release from New Jersey-based wall noise project Scarlet Diva.  The two around twenty-minute ‘walls’ are examples of flitting-to-feasting static & bass bound noise-making. And as usual with this project, the theme is femininity and its (sometimes) corruption/ soling….though this time around there’s a rather singer/ songwriter vibe, at least in the samples used at the start of each of the untitled tracks.

The release appears as a digital download on US noise label Trust Collective- with the cover artwork featuring a flowery backdrop, with a monochrome picture of a woman laying on a bed facing straight on with her leg in the air behind her. The release can be found here.

Both tracks here are Untitled- the first track begins with a sample of a woman talking about a female singer-songwriter, who has a decidedly playful manner- with the whole thing going on over a distant jazzy piano backing. Within a minute or so we kick into the ‘wall’- and here we find a rumbling bass crunch ‘n’ judder- moving with a tensely jittering static patter, which nicely batters ‘n’ buffs the whole thing along. The ‘wall’ is clearly intense and battering, but there is a nice playful quality about the flow/ feel of the ‘wall’ which is rather interesting, and of course, plays into the opening sample.

Moving onto the second track- and once again we have a sample- we find a backing of jazzy playful piano, a woman talking to a man about missing a plane, and later a jaunting male singer-songwriter singing over the piano. The noise kicks in at around the two-minute mark- and this ‘wall’ is a lot more ragged ‘n’ raw, yet at the same time, there are touches of the playful air too, though it’s way more buried. The ‘wall’ is built around a tight weave of a rapidly ripping ‘n’ chugging bass tone, skittering & blurred static clutter, and as we get further in these sort of strange moaning and groaning elements appear ever so often deep within the wall.

Though neither 'wall' here is quite as creative in its use of textures as some of the other work I’ve heard from this project. But both ‘walls’ are entrancing/ rewarding examples of bass-meets- static wall craft, and I rather like the playful vibe that edges both tracks, and the singer/ songwriter samples that are certainly not something I’ve heard used before in the wall noise scene( well maybe once/ twice before in some of James Killick’s projects)…so this is certainly something worth checking out.