SP — Under The Needle
The release of this album preceded an expansion for the label, seeing new and diverse artists filling the roster to come, where as before the label had in the most part served as an imprint for the labelhead to release his own works and those of presumably close associates - a level of 'outreach' seems to have taken place in the months to come, albeit very gradually, with the two most recent releases on the label from this year being from French HNW stalwart Vomir and the equally infamous titan of harsh noise Macronympha. SP is the project of Russian artist Sergey Pakhomov, labelhead of the powerhouse Reason Art Records and responsible for such a myriad of pristine and high-quality noise projects, he is one of the many artists in the international scene who is very hard to keep track of as his explorations take him further and further into new fields, new aliases, new collaborations. This release seemed to receive a lot of traction when it came out in 2017, many people were happy to see such a visceral and physical source being used for HNW in such an inventive way - while the process was certainly not entirely novel, the idiosyncratic method with which the process was carried out was, and many of Sergey's existing audience were eager to see how this project would bloom as a result.
The CDr comes in a plastic sleeve with a 4-page insert - the cover is on a glossy card and features a stark black and white rendition of the artist's process, with the artist alias and album title in block white lettering. We see a needle in the process of tracking a disc on a turntable, while the image contrast makes it hard to discern, there appears to be a number of chaotic scrapes and scratches across the surface of this disc and it appears to lack the grooves of a conventional vinyl record. The backside of the artwork is an even more stark and even more obscured image which appears to be taken of the exact same set-up but from a higher angle, here we see the scratches and scrapes more clearly under an exposing light, the light also reflects a soft white orb from the turntables centre spindle. The inner pages of the insert are a vibrant blood-red with black writing printed. The first page gives us the track-listing followed by a total run-time - the album is made up of three untitled tracks. The first is the largest clocking in at 34'38, while the next two come in at 16'26 and 17'53, even in combination these last two tracks don't make up the time of the first. The inside of this red half of the insert contains information about the artistic process and a link to the artists bandcamp. It describes how the material we have seen in the artwork is a "textured plastic" and that while it acts as source the audio has also been run through an amplifier with 5-band equaliser and recorded directly to tape. The final page of this red section features the label logo, a catalogue number and a website for the label as well as the issue number.
This CDr came from a period in the labels lifespan in which it was still operating from the Bandcamp platform but it has since moved it's operations to a "darknet site" and none of its previously available material (both digital and phsyical) can be found at their usual bandcamp address, which now features a sole release by a "D. V. Bukin" and re-direction to their new platform for releasing as well as their blogspot address. It is interesting to wonder at what might have encouraged this departure from the Bandcamp platform - it has routinely fallen under scrutiny from the international noise community as a platform which seems to take an unnecessarily large cut from sales, particularly for physical items which are often DIY and the artist is attempting to sell cheaply - they are often unable to account for fees whilst remaining inexpensive. Many noise artists have found it counter-intuitive to use the Bandcamp platform for physical merch such as tapes and CDr for this precise reason and I have noted several artists and labels switching to other platforms such as bigcartel, tictail and storenvy among others. With that said, the exact motive for the label's switch is unknown - and while there are many who have switched there are also many fine labels and artists who have stuck it out and who would surely argue for their being redeeming qualities to the platform that outweight whatever criticisms there are.
Diving into the release, I listened to this CDr on a second-hand Walkman that was given to me as a birthday present recently and so the experience of listening was shaped a lot by this new method of approach. Where as usually I listen to CDr's played through a system and speakers, with this release I was able to engross in the churning HNW in the same way that I do listening to digital releases. I would like to point out here that I have spent quite a bit on my heaphones, they cover the whole ear and have good range, I would never recommend to any listener that they attempt to listen to HNW with in-ear heaphones as you will most likely be diluting the sound to such a degree that you may as well be listening to a new wall. With this said, there are some walls which are intentionally recorded and released as incredibly lo-fi and with these walls, while the same obfuscation can surely take place, it might not be so against the artist intention or even the ethos and attitude of the wall and its artist to do so in that context.
The very first wall came churning into action rather abruptly, prior to its abrupt entrance there seemed to be a careening ambience I could hardly place, I was levelling up the volume just as it was cut into to see if I could discern any further. The abrupt entrance was swiftly carried up in a hypnotically ebbing and flowing churn - the hypnotic aspect of the lulling and heaving of the wall, in this instance, is immediately placed in the mind of the listener with this release. We know that the source was a textured material on a turntable - while there is most likely ample room for chaotic interpetation of the source, we know that the source itself will depend upon a 'kind' of rhythm. With this said, all traces of any actual, discernable rhythm the source may have had are definitely lost. The wall scoops the listener into a serene immersion - by the half-hour mark I was fully engrossed, unfortunately only to be snatched away from engrossment only a few minutes further to the walls close. Throughout the release I was amazed at how granular and bead-like the shreds of static cascading were in this wall - as though a showering waterfall of heavy stones and sand particles was in constant motion right before your ears.
Coming into the second untitled instalment of this release, I felt a sudden pang of disappointment at the close of a perfectly encapsulating wall but this was immediately displaced by the clatter and shredding of a new wall - one not too disimilar from the last. In fact, the similarities that did exist were large enough that it almost felt dream-like - if anyone reading has ever awoken from a dream very momentarily only to slip straight back into sleep and be surprised at how quickly they found themselves dreaming again, you'll know what I mean when I make this comparison - the wall here was similar but not identical to the last, but similar enough that it were as though I was picking up the stock-piled immersion from the last as though there had been no break at all (but there had, and I'll have to look into whether my Walkman hasn't removed gaps and whether it can or if this break of silence was in fact part of the recordings - my own guess would be the latter). Where the first wall had been like a continuous shower of rockfall, this wall had much more of a 'splutter' - sudden blips like minute particles of seaspray lunge out from the main bulk of the HNW slabs that crash down upon the ears, perfect little chirps of high-end that seem to exist so briefly that their existence itself is called into question. In this wall, it is as though the rockfall of the previous wall continues but this time it takes place over a structure which is submerged by the fall, there are artefacts of the structure, most of which is destroyed in the process, which continue to hold and create a distinct impression upon the whole of the monotonous churn - a slathered degradation which ever so slightly falls out of line with the rest of the trundling static wall, only to be enveloped soon after and replaced with another.
The third and final instalment to this release goes much further afield from the wall previous to it, where the two previous walls felt like a continuous shower, this one almost seems to "simmer" in comparion. The churning is still there, but it is frequented by bubbling and squelching and as such loses much of its "force", rather than the imagery of a structure being pummeled under constant strain, it is as though that very structure itself is now a molten pool of liquid that continues to receive the constant flow of matter, but catches, muffles and regurgitates the originally powerful wall, forming a new, amorphous stew of sound. Nestled amongst the low-end churn and these intermittent squelches, the close listener discerns some of the most delicious textures to be found throughout the release - there is a distinct sinewy crackle much like that which an open fire gives off which seems almost buried by the mass of that which surrounds it, but it is present nonetheless and discernable for the right ear willing to search it out. Sergey has a trackrecord for experimenting meticulously with multiple layering within his HNW and it is unsurprising that in these walls, while they may be layered or they may not, the knowledge and experience of texture and its distribution in HNW that he has gleaned from such a history have obviously continued to serve him in the construction of this release.
This is hands down one of my favourite albums from Sergey, as well as my favourite album I have heard from the label so far, although I am very interested in continuing to explore the catalogue. I strongly recommend picking up this album if you can, even if you don't like listening to CDr's so much. I am ready to admit myself that I have a personal preferance for tape, vinyl and even digital listening, but am open to the medium to some degree, perhaps due to nostalgic ties. It would be imperative to own this release simply so that you can say you have a slice of (modern) HNW history in your hands.