Tinieblas — A Skeletal Figure Clad...In A Long Robe
The project takes it’s influences and themes from the Mexican drug wars and various Mexican gangster related folklore characters like: Jesús Malverde- who’s known as the "generous bandit", "angel of the poor” or “narco-saint”,and is celebrated and praised by those involved in drug trafficking. But in particular this release takes it’s title and imagery from the figure of Santa Muerte(which literal means Saint Death in English) who’s often depicted as a skeletal figure, clad in a long robe and carrying one or more objects, usually a scythe and a globe. The tapes cover illustration is of a gold foil embossed picture of Santa Muerte.
Side A is taken up by the title track which starts out with a nice coarse & seething downpour of razor sharp static tone rain which is moves between: two part 'heavy rain on perspex corrugated roof' clamouring tone attack, and suddenly moved blocks of noise tone that have an almost harmonic progression about them.
As the track goes on the constant thick wall of hammering rain static tone is kept up to a roaring and unforgiving level, yet there is movement and change with in the tones pattern as it batters into you. Around the nine minute mark the track starts to break down into juddering and uneven semi-dying motor pattern. You keep thinking it’s going to suddenly splatter out all togeather, but it keeps it’s nice jumping and juddering feel- sometimes bare so and at other times in quite a rapid and persistent manner. Then just in the last few minutes the track takes off with this snaking spray paint or demented snake hissing static tone that slides into stirring roar just as the track exits.
Over onto to side B and this is taken up by the track ‘A Tithing of Cocaine for their saint’ which starts out with just under a minute of muffled recordings of ritual praise in Mexican tounge that’s suddenly bombarded by quick second cuts of noise grain. Then we jump into a furnace like ‘wall’ of roaring tone which is made-up of one stuck roaring tone, and another slightly more juddering and snaking tone which gives the track quite a nice teeming and slowly feasting feel. By the three minute mark it’s like the furnace door has been opened and shots of molten bellowing tones are ravaging your face and head in nice sustained yet shifting attacks of roaring and melting noise, which ends up pushing you to the floor in a singed and smoking mound. The rest of the track alternates between hamering, slightly train track chugging dwells and roaring furnace ear engulfs- through it stays longer in one grain & groove than early in the tracks length.
'A Skeletal Figure Clad...In A Long Robe' is an effectively brutal open shot of shifting and face-melting Harsh Noise wall matter that focus in on some quite original and distinctive influences.