The Blackmoor Strangler — The Mark Of M
The blue tape with pink tippex like dabbing's comes in a pink card sleeve that features on it's front cover a still from a 1950’s horror film of a severed male head with the letter M branded on it . Inside the sleeve there’s a black and white creepy picture of what looks like houses of Commons & Big Ben in London taken around midnight- all of this nicely sets the mood for the dark and brutal wall pummelling’s you find inside.
On the first side of tape we have “Dinner Party Murders” which after a second or so of sustained high pitched noise jumps into mid-paced rolling slice of walled noise that’s built around patterns of thick ‘n’ murky rumbling static judders, which interlock into each other in a pleasingly enchasing and moorish manner. The track really stays on this same muffled ’n’ rumbling path for the first half of it’s run time, and sure some tones seem to shift slightly but mostly it’s fixed in its attack.
At around the twenty minute mark it seems to speed up slightly, becoming more urgent, and slightly more battering/buffeting in it’s feel- which nicely adds a bit of tension to the ‘wall’. The track brings to mind walking fog shrouded city streets, and been stalked through these streets by a limping and clocked figure with a sword stick ready to strike. With the latter part of the track bringing to mind been cornered by the killer. The track also seems to capture nicely that melancholic feel of black & white horror movies of the 1940’s & 50’s where the streets seemed people-less and deeply sinister.
Over onto the second side and we have the title track, which after another brief high pitched tone dwell drops into a more open sounding mesh of static juddering tones that are underfed by distant high pitch sustains and lighter bashing static subtones. The juddering static patterns nicely circle back into each other in an appealing and slightly blurry manner. Once again this track is fairly stayed and unmoving in its feel for it ‘s first half, though there are slight shifts in the judders pitchers and movements. At around the twenty minute mark a billowing & looped slighty 50’s sci-fi drone is added to the track, and the judders also seem to speed & tighten-up too, bringing more tension to the track. For some reason this track seems to bring to mind a movie scene that you’d often see popping up in 1950’s horror movies where you'd find a sinister eastern european man trying to hypnotize his victim in submission .
So all in all two rewarding, hypnotic, moorish and lengthy walls from this lessen know of Richard Ramirez projects. This has a run of 55 copies so hopefully more will get a chance to pick this up. To hear samples and pick up a copy drop by here