Sebastian Tomb — You Are Free, But You Are Alone
You Are Free, But You Are Alone is a digital EP that blends together wall-making, woozy-to-unwell harmonics, and snippets of skewed self-help dialogue. This Berlin-based project has been active for around a year thus far- with around ten or so releases to date- though as with much of the wall noise scene releases, these have largely been digital.
Appearing on Poland’s Gates Of Hypos the release features on its front cover a woman in a bubble bath- this is monochrome and looks like it dates from either the 50’s or early 60’s. She looks slightly fearful/ doubtful with her breasts covered by her hands & bubble foam, The release can be found here.
The EP opens with “Struggle To Win Over Yourself”- it’s a minute of melting & woozy string muzak, a feasting wash of static haze, and a man reading distant looped self-help quotes from a man. Next, we have “Be Successful, Not Be A Person” this opens with a rather stern woman giving another self-help quote. Before we drop into a mixture of a muffed bass buffeting & mid-range clutter ‘n’ knock- this comes in at the nine-minute mark.
The release is finished off with two five-minute tracks. “First is Scare Stiff And Held Up Against Collapse” which opens with a AI-like female voice talking about the reality one must face & picking delusion. Before dropping into a mixture of hazed rattle ‘n’ knock- with some of the tones less well defined, which creates a feeling of subtle wall illusion, and rough ‘n’ ready textured charm. The EP is finished with “Scare Stiff And Held Up Against Collapse” with a sample of a man talking about being free but alone. We then dropped into a blend of warbling ‘n’ circling muzak ambience, slow textural scape, and static haze
As a release You Are Free, But You Are Alone creates an effective feeling of warped uneasiness- with the elements of textured noise, ambience, and self-help dialogue working well together. I do hope Sebastian Tomb carries on down this sonic line, with these themes- as I think there is certainly more mining to be done on both of these.