Sumbru — Turn In My Grave
The tape features two twenty minute tracks, and really what we have here is crude, churning, extremely bleak & lo-fi sounding wall-craft. It brings to mind his work with projects such as: Ruine, The Killer Came From The Bronx, (early) Figures Of Solitude, but with maybe a slight more blurred & droned out vide to proceedings. The projects underground metal squiggled like logo feeds into this too, as does the releases title. Though the white slip sleeve , with stuck-on layered red & white patterns rather felt at odds with the rest of the sound/ package( apparently this is a wall paper pattern which Julien liked from a Jess Franco film).
Side A track is entitled “Retourne-toi”, and this a extremely punishing & bluntly unrelenting bit of ‘wall-craft’. It’s built around three layers of rapidly circling ‘n’ churning noise matter-we have: a distant & muffled mid-ranged tone, a loose-though rapid rumble like churn, and a taut-yet-blunt semi-crisp judder. These elements are brought together to create an airless, continually drilling & constricting ‘wall’, which brought to mind been on an endless train track trundling on & on through a dusty, hot, and suffocating underground cave network.
Flipping over to side B, and we have the track “Dans Ma Tombe”. And if the first side track was the airless journey down, this sides track is reaching the blunt, bleak, and totally hopeless centre. It’s brings together the following elements: a fixed & meaty/ bass-bound engine drone. Muffled, thinner & slightly ribbed churning. And buzzing yet slightly hazed collection of subtones. Together these create this extremely barren yet weighty crushing ‘wall’ of sound, which seems to constantly press more & more down of you- as if you are stuck inside a slow moving car crusher at a scrap yard.
Apparently this new project is going to see Julien utilize a host of different wall-noise/ static texturing approaches, but keep in places his overriding sonic identity. So it will be interesting to hear where the next release goes. As debut releases go Turn In My Grave is most successful- with both ‘wall’ been worthy & crudely entrancing in their attack. It’s also a great opening release from this new ‘wall’ label too, and I look forward to hearing what’s next from Rapture Records.