Various Artists — Wallwhores

‘Wallwhores’ is a three 90 minute tape box set which brings together six sides of tape(though in reality there’s only three lots of forty five minute tracks here- as all the tapes are double A-Sides) from three artists who focus in on the more stripped, thinner and mainly unchanging HNW matter. Participating here are  Chicago based  Insurgent( aka Mack Chami who’s also in the creative yet violent Power electronics middle eastern tinged project Koufar & thicker more bombarding HNW project Bachir Gemayel ) , Dutch based UN( aka Kevin Jansen whose more know project is Svartvit) and  Swedish based Missing Girls(aka Karl T who’s also of course in Audrey Hepburn obsessed HNW project Skönhet, along with other HNW project Självhat, he  also runs HarshFuckedForLife label which put out this set).

The three plain white, but labelled c90  tapes come in a long vinyl tape case that has a static based blue, grey, white and black  pattern wrap around art work on the out side. And inside of course sit the tapes on one side then a simple but effective black text on white paper inlay detail each tapes contents.

Anyway moving onto the sonics inside and first up we have the Insurgent tape which is entitled ‘ March On to the Holy land’. Side one/ two starts out with an impassioned  male Arabic speaker’s rant which gets over-run by advancing patterns of static crackle, pop and buck.  As the first speakers rant finishers a more rhythmic and theatrically chanted Arabic rants  coming in which really work very well with  building and then receding patterns of static which Chami unfolds. The sounds patterns  go from single thread and taut static ripples up onto tense, tight and jagged multiple  treaded spider web like tonalities. By the eighth minute the Arabic speaking has gone and Chami homes in purely on the rewarding weaves of thinned yet often quite tense static patterns that are complex, rolling, bucking, drilling and generally eventful  shifting. All told the tracks a highly detailed excise in thinned controlled static- which while has the odd occasion dips into treading sonic water on the whole is very appealing and involving piece.

Onto the second tape the double  A side of  UN material which goes under a untitled banner, which it’s also the first release from this project. Side one/two finds Jansen offering a tightly weaved, juddering and jittering wall of stripped static. The ‘walls’ built from a consistent and stayed collection of jumping, tearing and crisply juddering tones which circle you in quite a hypnotically focused & surrounding manner. The structure varies between two or three patterns through-out, so there’s no great shifting in tone or feeling for forty five minutes, yet Jansen keeps it appealing and entrancing through most of the tracks length.

And lastly we have the Missing Girls tape which like the UN tape is untitled. Side one/two comes in with this great juddering, tense and  tightly rippled ‘wall’ of slightly muffled electro tone that drills into you in quite an appealing, focused yet stripped manner. If you shut your eyes you can almost see blue electro static light jump and arcing between two conductors in an unformed and rewarding manner. Latter on a juddering circular feel moves into the track, it also has a dripping flamed plastic like edge to it’s judder. At times you think it might complete flicker or circle it’s self out, but it keeps going on in a similar fashion for the whole tracks length.  I enjoyed the rippled electro feel of the track through I felt when the more circular, out of focus tones come-in latter;  it made it feel less appealing and rewarding.

‘Wallwhores’  is  a collection of often very stripped, thin and repetitive HNW matter that goes from being very rewarding, moorish and entrancing, to  being little too samey, uneventful and stayed for it’s own good. All told a good collection just don’t expect to be spellbound by all that’s on offer here.