The Girl With The Stanley Knife — Cradle Of Blades
Where Slow Death Records releases were often based around a fascination with the darker side of African tribal culture & legend, Ink Runs Recordings are more focused on artists & art like endeavours. Also were Slow Death Records released purely HNW(taking in progressive HNW & ANW), Ink Runs Recordings is seemingly releasing a mix of HNW, noise drone, & harsh noise.
The Girl With The Stanley Knife is the solo project of Julien’s wife Charlotte, and for this release she ultilzers a mix of analogue synthesizer(focused into droning walls of static), amplified paper which is wrapped & torn, & contact-mic'ed based noise. The projects name and releases title is a reference to both Charlotte's graphic art activities and her love of slasher movies
On offer on this CDR release is single track, which comes in at 20.41 mark- the track opens with a bleak & subterranean noise drone, and on top of this is a more stark layer of thin textural based ripping & textures- the drone is fixed & distant, while the tearing textures are close & fairly active.
At around the five minute mark the tearing disappears, we get just a line of brief clicking tone dwell, then a thicker mesh of constantly fuzzing ‘n’ churning static is added on top of the still fixed drone, and from here on the whole thing becomes more fixed- though there is still a nice separation between the stark & distant drone, and the more searing top layer of noise. By the ten minute mark we thinned down to the bleak drone, and a thinner layer of rushing/hissing tone, but by the eleventh minute the thicker element has returned again. At the fifteen minute we pan back to this great eerier mix of muffled industrial fix tone churn, fading back drone haze, and a growing higher pitched tone sustain- and this is how the track ends
I guess you’d say this track is a coolly moody & bleakly atmospheric take on noise drone, with elements of rip based texturing & wall-ish like harsh noise dwells. On the whole I found the bleak & stark vibe of the track most appealing, and I’d like to hear what this project can do over a slightly longer runtime.