Small Hours — Karen

Vagary imprint presents another massive HNW collection. This time we have a 5 x c40 cassette box set by Small Hours entitled Karen. For those unfamiliar, Small Hours is the project of James Killick based out of the U.K.. An indelible fixture in the HNW scene, Killick creates wall-noise under a variety of guises, but Small Hours (along with Love Katy) seem to be his most active projects. For those more acclimated to Killick’s work, knows that he has a penchant for producing wonderfully themed (mostly light-hearted) releases. In many ways shifting the HNW paradigm on it’s head, he strayed away from the doom and gloom often associated with the HNW scene and embraced pop culture for inspiration. On Karen, Killick’s source of affection is the late/great Karen Carpenter of the Carpenters fame.

On this box set the listener is presented with 5 x 40 minute cassettes with each tape featuring the same track front and back. If some static, unmoving blocks of sound were your expectations, you would be right in spades.

Tape 1 (no actual track titles are used) features a wall that revolves around an aggressive fuzz that seemingly comes in rapidly rolling waves. Imagine a raging ball of static energy repeatedly battering an impenetrable wall and you might begin to approximate what I’m hearing. As the track progresses, an atmospheric wave sounds to be worming it’s way underneath...or is it? It’s always tricky listening to a wall and working out what’s actually being heard and what patterns and artifacts our brains conjure up. Regardless, its a powerful opening salvo.

Tape 2 offers a mid-paced static crawl with some low-end tones peaking through the fixed noise. It does sound like it slows down a bit as the track transpires.

Tape 3 is based on a buoyant and heavy bass juddering and a thinner line of crispy static crackle. The crackle becomes more of the focus as the track progresses and becomes almost tangible. Like I can imagine it being some solid material that is repeatedly broken and crushed.

Tape 4 is the most hyper-active of all the walls presented. The wall is based on an unfettered electronic sizzle, rapidly rolling along coupled with a thick bass juddering. The bass aggressively bobs and bounces around as the sizzle seemingly intensifies as the track progresses.

The final tape - Tape 5 mixes up a punchy bass tone and sparky, electrical livewire crackling. There’s a lot of crumbly, crackly goodness to be found on this piece, yet I find it to not quite stick out as much as the other tracks.

All in all, it’s a pretty solid collection of HNW sterilization. That said, I kind of wish some samples were incorporated into this release, as Killick has done countless times in the past. Some themed wall noise really stands out without needing any additional samples to lay the groundwork….the Anonymous Dresden release and Cannibal Ritual’s stuff comes to mind, or even Small Hour’s own Jerusalem CD-R. However, some wall noise, especially explorations of pop cultural figures might be better set up with some source material. I get why he didn’t, as he states in the promo blurb, that he wanted it to be about the void that Karen let herself be consumed by. I think some additional intro samples could’ve created a real haunting (yet respectful) and somber tone and not be jokey or humourous. Anyway, that said it’s still a release worthy of your time (if you can track it down) by one of the more prolific figures in the HNW community.