Sumbru — Über Die Sogennante Vampÿrs
Part 1 begins with a blare of distorted bass guitar, a wobbling loop of churning noise that careers through the speakers. Buried in this over-saturated low end noise, delicate treble crackle dances, almost ethereal in comparison to its foundation. The piece skirts a line between hypnotic repetition, and random pulses; it becomes a maze of rhythms and pitches. It’s unclear whether the track is indeed based on a loop or not. Whilst there are some nice textures in Part 1, the ‘melodic’ elements are perhaps more interesting, with tones beating against each other, and resolving or intensifying. Often, the piece sounds like an engine, faltering and struggling.
Part 2 is another predictably superlative chunk of HNW from Skrobek. The wall is built on a hard, low, mountainous drone, which carries a sense of real expansiveness, as well as a fast pace. Over this, incredibly wet, crumbly, high-mid crackles slowly unravel, and compress. The whole track is augmented by reverb, and it really is quite exquisite. The restrained spitting of the high-mid detail becomes more hypnotic than the rhythms of Part 1.
This is, above all things, frustratingly short. Certainly, Part 2 could have gone on infinitely for my ears; but I also think Part 1 might have benefitted from a longer play. However, those are my selfish desires, and quite irrelevant here! However, I’m right to say that Part 2 could have gone on infinitely - it’s a beautiful piece of wall construction, quite breathtaking, really. Part 1 is an interesting experiment, which has grown on me with every new listen, but it is unfortunately overshadowed, in my ears, by Part 2. Regardless, it is a good piece of work, which confounds genre expectations and boundaries - though it perhaps summons up the ghost of Maurizio Bianchi past. This is still available in physical form, from the Hallucination Tapes bandcamp - I have no idea what you’re waiting for…