Snuff Prom — Great American Death
The release appeared in late September 2014, and was a joint release between Palinopsia Recordings & Richard’s own label Deadline Recordings. It came in the form of a cassette release ( ltd to 25 copies) and a digital download- I’m reviewing the tape version of the release.
The cassette comes in a pro printed black & white, double sided & fold out sleeve. This takes in a gritty monochrome picture of women viciously stabbing someone, close-up of a pair of lips & a knife, and other murder related pictures.
First up, and taking up all of side A we have the track “Unknown Victim 1”. This is just over twenty three minute affair, and it starts out with Ramirez creating a grim yet brutal ‘wall’ built around a muffled almost aquatic & set rumble, and a selection of closely weaved & tonal similar mid-ranged constantly tumbling judders. At the 7th minute the ‘wall’ suddenly cut outs, and is replaced by a more simplistic mix of rolling juddering & thinner/ slightly weathered jittering. From here on every few minutes Ramirez switchers from one ‘wall’ to another- none of these switchers are drastically different, and the same feeling & vibe is retained in the track…. Through the pace does seem to shift up & down- but of course that may just be a trick of the ‘wall’. The switching of the ‘walls’ rather effective twist in the murderous themed tension of the track. And as you’d expected with anything by Mr Ramirez, each ‘wall’ is masterfully conceived, to create both taut moody, entrancement, and rewarding textural detail.
Flipping over to side B, and first up we have the just under fourteen minutes of “Traced In Blood”. This track sees Ramirez moving into more unsettling, uneasy & murky ambience. It’s built around slowly swirling & deeply oppressive layers of stark mid-to- slightly higher pitched drone textures, which create this barren yet very troubled atmosphere. In ones mind eye you can almost picture slow-mo super 8 footage of the aftermath of a killing- the camera slowly dwelling & lingering of the various cuts, bruises, rips, tears & abrasions of the victim.
Ending off side B, and the tape we have “A Blank Background Now Covered In remains”. This track comes in at just over the nine minute mark, and it finds Ramirez creating this taut & tense ‘wall’ built layers of constant rolling ‘n’ rumbling bass bound noise. Through the tensioned layers of bass tone you get rather effective buzzing static sub-tones, which nicely tighten up the air-less yet hypnotic pull of the track.
So in summing this is another very worthy release from Mr Ramirez, and it clearly shows he still one of the masters of the walled noise genre, as every track here is expertly conceived for both textural worth/ detail, tense murderous atmospherics, and intense yet entrancing listening.