Thin Mountain — Thin Mountain II
The Thin Mountain seemingly stared this year- thus releasing four releases. This release is influenced by the work of Jon Padgett- a New Orleans based horror writer & ex ventriloquist, who writes disquieting & foreboding short stories- with his most know & respected book been his 2017 short story collection The Secret of Ventriloquism. I’ve not read any of the authors work myself- so I can’t comment on how this release relates to Padgett stories- but we do certainly have well contrasted & decidedly atmospheric wall craft on offer here.
First up we have “She Sang so Everyone in the Compartment Car Could Hear and See and Feel the Things She was Singing About”- this opens with a woman saying ‘we can hear little Evie- she inside’ then the same women sings a few lines of a decidedly creepy song. The ‘wall’ kicks in at just past the minute mark- and here we find this waving & slightly oscillating bass drone, which is topped by this buffeting ‘n’ battering static noise pattern. The drone has a wonderful sinister sort of spectral hoover quality to its make-up, which creates a feeling of both taut-ness & unease, and the chopping tones start to nicely break & splinter into each other in an almost smashing wood like manner. At around the eleventh minute, the buffeting & battering switches to this seared hissing grind- with the bass drone become a more of a churning hoover. The whole ‘wall’ has a great unbalancing & subtle creepy edge to it, which of course perfect fits with what I’ve heard about Jon Padgett writing.
Next, up we have “Oh, Little Evie Knows Where We Want To Be, And Her Chiming Voice Can Almost Take Us There For Real And True”. And this kicks straight into the noise- here we find a similar spectral bass hover to this first track, but it’s more to the forefront of this ‘wall’ to begin with. This is joined by a tight if slightly static jitter- this feels like it’s constantly sowing & weaving into its self. At around the ten-minute mark, the drone takes on the searing grind again, with the static textures seemingly becoming more choppy in their attack. In it’s last few moments things suddenly pare back to just this circling slicing tone, and the female voice from the first track comes in once again saying ‘ little Evie is singing again’. The whole wall feels decidedly lulling & woozy in its feel, and once again Matzus creates a rather unease atmosphere.
If you enjoy well crafted & cleverly layered wall craft that decidedly creepy in it’s atmospheric make-up you’ll be needing to check out Thin Mountain II- sadly the tapes all gone now, but you can still download it here