Small Hours — Kingdom Hearts
The original release featured four single sided C20 tapes that came in a small vinyl tape box, which featured character picture artwork from the Kingdom Hearts series. The four blue coloured tapes also featured full colour labels that took in more of the series artwork. I’m reviewing a MP 3 promo of the set, as the original extremely tiny edition of four copies is long sold out.
Though I’m a on/ off gaming fan, and I have played Japanese RPG’s in the past, I have never played any of this series- so I’m going into this somewhat blind. Each tape here features a single ten minute track, and the four tracks offer up a fairly varied mix of HNW/ANW.
On the first tape we have “Sora I”, and this opens in a very bright ‘n’ cheesy manner with a mixture of backwards ‘n’ forwards female vocals over a mixture of floating synth, 80’s guitar soloing & a sort of churning ‘n’ yet fixed almost trip-hop beat/noise pattern. With-in a minute & a half the tracks intro fades, and we’re left with an this taut yet oddly quirky 'wall' that mixers together a tight even line of juddering cable crackle with a locked yet thin drum roll like texture. The ‘wall’ mangers to put you in an strange mood, somewhere between fun & tension, and it’s a most effective & original bit of wall-making.
On tape two we have “Sora II”, and this tracks open with a rather soothing & emtional soundtrack sample which takes in felt piano melodies that are back with gentle flourishing string elements. Over the top of this is added a slowly building rumble 'n' churning mass of walled noise which Killick skilful builds up until the sample fades. The ‘wall’ is a rather pleasing mixture of billowing down-ward roast & jittering thinner static gallop. Instead of feeling particularly intense or nasty the ‘wall’ feels oddly soothing & mellow- yet it’s still walled noise….again it’s a most effective & clever bit of noise-making.
Onto tape three & we have “Sora III”, and once again it starts with another sample, & this time it’s an egger & flamboyant mixture synthetic string/ horn fantasy game sound tracking- the sample rather brought to mind a RPG character quickly making it’s way across a green picturesque landscape. Over the top of this sample Killick slow rises this sort of galloping & muffled noise texture, and pretty soon the sample fades & we’re just left with the ‘wall’. Once again there’s quite a playful though noisily corrupted feel the ‘wall’- it’s sort of a muffled mass of slightly wonky juddered semi-harmonic noise texturing that’s feed out in an pleasing yet non-stop manner. I wonder if the ‘wall’ is built around a modified & melted section of soundtrack from the game, as you can just make the pleasing harmonic playful-ness of that type of music, yet you can never fully define a tune or melody. As the ‘wall’ progresses the elements seem to subtle slow ‘n’ melt into each other, which creates this pleasing drone like chug.
Lastly on tape four we have “Sora IV”, and this opens with quite a mellow & easy listening type sample that mixes together slow darting electro vibe waltz’s, felt & slightly melancholic horn work, and string risers. Pretty soon the sample has faded, and we’re into the ‘wall’ which is another very pleasing mixture of roast ‘n’ crackle, which is underfed by this darting & slowly waltz noise textural judder which is very clever mimicking the mellow yet sad jauntiness of the soundtrack sample. Once again this track finds Killick in a noisy yet playful & warming type vibe.
With-out a shadow of a doubt this tape set offers up some of Mr Killick’s best work thus far, & it’s also features some of the mostly cleverly manipulated bits of wall-making you’ll ever have heard. And to top it all he mangers to captured the fun, quirky & playful vibe of Japanese RPG. So that makes it all the more pity that this is long, long out of print….hopefully someone will see fit to reissue this in a much larger edition, because this really deserves to be heard by alot more people.