Various HNW Artists — Seven Domains Of Disgust
The set takes its theme/ concept from an article in a free English paper about disgust. The article was based upon information gathered and hypothesised by The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine that proposed that humans are the (relatively) successful species they are today due to the disgust they developed towards aspects of their environment and some of the things that dwell within it. So each artist presents a ‘wall’ themed around the theme of disgust.
The four black shelled 90 minute tapes come in a white polybox. The boxes outer artwork is a collage of the original newspaper article (which was found on the toilet floor of a factory) and pictures provided by some of the artists that have been torn, smudged, smeared and bound together with glue, spit, blood and semen then scanned and printed on white card...there's even some body hair on there too. All to give a visual collage of disgust.
Starting off the set on side A of tape one we have a track from Woman Despiser, which is a fairly recent & brutal walled noise project from the ultra prolific & multiple project linked Texas noise legend Richard Ramirez. The track on offer here is entitled “Sexual”, and it starts off with a rumbling & juddering mix of billowing low end noise that’s wrapped with crackling/ jittering sub-tones, as the ‘wall’ progresses the sub-tones take on more skipping/ darting feel. The ‘wall’ is very rapid, lo-fi, muffled and battering in it’s attack/feel, and Ramirez stays locked down into this ‘wall’ for the first ten minutes. After this point he starts to shift into other ‘walls’ every 5 minutes or so - we have a chugging ‘n’ muffled mid-ranged judder that meets a churning low-end drone, a searing galloping meets hissing sub-tones, a truly battering & aquatic muffled low end judder/bubble meets hiss rapidity, and beyond. Though he’s switching or altering the ‘wall’ the track remains in a constant flowing & battering form. Around the twenty minute mark the track seems to become less lo-fi & muffled, as a mixture of taut & tense rolling ‘n’ rapid rumbling, that’s edged by crisp jittering sub-tones is put in place. As this ‘wall’ progresses it gives one the feel of the sonic equivalent of slowing lava, with the crisp sub-tones seemingly slowing & gathering around the rumbling tonality- this gives a great muddy & sludgy weighty feel. By the 30 minute mark it's starting to feel more & more like a slow descent into muddy & muffled ANW, though it’s still HNW. By 35 minute it seems to have picked-up pace again (through of course this could be the illusion of the ‘wall’), and it all seems slightly looser in structure too. The track ends with this ‘wall’. All told this track is a nice slowly shifting & brutal bit of wall-making from Ramirez to start off the tape set.
Onto side B of tape two, and we have a track from new UK walled noise project L.Deere, & behind the project is Liam Deere from northern England who runs Kafkex Rex- the HNW & power electronics label that has put this box set out. The track on offer here is seemingly the projects first ever release, and it’s entitled “Moral”. It opens with what sounds like a movie sample of a man saying ‘morality, the last bastion of a coward’, then we slide into the dense & muffled walled noise, which seems to built around a few fluctuating noise textures. We have juddering ‘n’ sluggish low ends, mid-range rumbles ‘n’ worms, and adulating ‘n’ bumpy mixed low to mids- all this creates a thick wall that seems to flex & shift under the surface, much like crust covered lava flow. From time to time you think one tone may suddenly break away or the ‘wall’ feels like it's going to thin out, but it remains locked in it’s same through-out. The tone ranges are quite similar across the track, meaning this does have a sludgy & subterranean type vibe to it. All told this is an effective first stab at wall-making from Mr Deere, and with it’s shifting-under-the–surface/ interlocking type feel your kept locked into to the wall until it finishers.
Moving onto tape number two, and on side C we have a track from Canadian based Horriblemess, it's entitled “Hygiene”. The track slides in with a distant billowing/ grating tone, and this is quickly joined by a huge sounding locked juddering/thundering low to mid range texture mesh. From here on in the track locks down into mid-paced bludgeoning ‘n’ suffocating attack which seems to well & truly engulf your sonic sensors. The huge sounding tones take up most of the sonic picture, through from time to time you can make out a distant billowing texture at the edges of the ‘wall’. Also ever now & then you get subtle shifts with-in the main tones feel, these are never vast. The ‘wall’ seems to become a but more churning ‘n’ hazed like in its feel for the last ten or so minutes, and I felt this was rather effective- it’s a pity this couldn’t have been done sooner. This track is certainly very engulfing & huge sounding, though I did find my mind starting to wonder around the mid-way point….maybe it would have been better if they’d been two instead of one track on this side, as I did feel this tracks ideas didn’t quite stand up to a forty five minute run.
Onto side D, and we have a track from the highly prolific & mostly extremely brutal Serbian HNW project Dead Body Collection. The track here is entitled “Lesion”, and the ‘wall’ is made up of a mixture of rapidly billowing ‘n’ juddering noise textures that are locked into battering maelstrom of sound. The noise textures fall between low & mids, there are also some thinner sub-tones added to the layer mix too. Through-out the ‘wall’, first one texturing than another seems to be overtaking by the other tones, and this give a great feel of motion & battering intensity . I guess the track brought to mind been locked inside either a huge cerement mixer, or an large industrial washing machine that’s just being put on. Once again there’s a nice muffled feel to the tracks production which nicely enhances the battering & brutal spinning intense-ness of the ‘wall’. Through this is a fairly text book example of DBC’s brutal & battering take on wall-making, it’s both an effective & entrancing slice of walled noise.
Going onto tape number three, and on it’s first side( side E) we have a track from French wall noise project Å. The track here’s entitled “Atypical Appearance”, and to me this felt like two or three tracks stuck together. The track starts off in surprisingly mellow/ creepy fashion with a music box and horror synth like dwell. This leads into a bleak mixture of weird sort of skipping/slapping textures, wolf howls & lo-fi sinister noise ambience. When the ‘wall’ kicks in at around the two minute mark it’s another very brutal & unrelenting bit of HNW. It’s built around a roaring ‘n’ raging line of thick low-end noise, and this is battered & bayed at by billowing & whipping wind like sub-tones. There’s certainty a very weather beaten & intense horror type vibe to this part of the track, and it conjured up bedraggled & weary travellers walking through a raging winter storm, as they make their way towards a sinister looking castle- this first ‘wall’ isn’t really the normal theme/ vibe of Å’s work, but this is certainly an effective horror ripped slice of brutal HNW.
Around the 12 minute mark we move into the next part of track, first off we get a two minute dialogue sample from David Lynch’s Elephant Man, then we kick back into the ‘wall’ which has now switched to a chugging ‘n’ meaty dense mass that has crisp & tighter jittering static tones wrapped around it. From time to time the ‘wall’ feels like it’s slowing & hammering into it’s self, I'm not sure if this is really happening or it’s a trick of the ‘wall’, but which ever it’s very effective.
At around the thirty minute mark we break again for another sample from Elephant Man with John Hurt screaming 'I’m not a animal, I am a human being', then we’re back into the ‘wall’ again…and it seems a little loser now, it’s built around a jittering mid paced tone that’s weaved by a smaller static grain- towards the end of this part elements of the ‘walls’ texture seems to break off and fall through it's self, this is all done in a fairly subtle manner, but again it’s most effective.
It’s seems like an age since this project has put out anything, so it’s good to see them in fine & rewarding form here….though I did feel that the first horror themed part of the track seemed a little disconnected & unrelated from the other two parts.
Onto the second side of tape three (Side F), and on this side we have a track from mainly Hindu/Buddhist themed Czech Republic based HNW act Static Mantra. Their track is entitled “Food”, and it offers up a wall that bonds together muddy ‘n’ sludgy noise tones into a impenetrable yet subtle layer shifting wall of sound. The tracks built around two maybe three muddy ‘n’ low ranged juddering tones, and around these are thinner/ crisper mid to low ranged noise tones. Static Mantra knits these tones into a thick & cocooning wall of sound, and with subtle layer shifts he keeps the listener interested through-out. The ‘wall’ subtle moves from slow almost stopping muddiness, up to more mid-paced feeling- at times it feels like it may slow & thin out to ANW but it never does. All told this is an effective & entrancing, yet fairly standard slice of dense HNW.
Tape fours first side( side G) is taken up by a track from fairly recent yet creative British Wall noise project Clive Henry. The track on offer here is entitled “Animal”, and it’s a great example of Mr Henry’s trademark slowly morphing yet brutal wall craft. The track opens with a slowly fading in line of slowly juddering mid ranged noise, this is weaved with a slightly higher ‘n’ edgy line of jittering static. Around the two & a half minute mark a brief German film dialogue sample appears under the wall, and when this ends the ‘wall’ starts to get more complicated with it’s jittering, juddering & rolling grain like textures/ patterns. By around the six minute mark a looser rolling ’n’ juddering ‘wall’ starts to take over the first ‘wall’, and this new ‘wall’ sounds somewhere between fast tribal drum battering & rapid stream or waterfall like texturing- with a mixture of raging billowing & crisp/wetter rushing sub-tones. Just over the twelve minute mark the ‘wall’ starts to thin out leaving a mixture of the first jittering(and now slightly skipping) tone, and the watery/ crisp sub-tones from the second ‘wall’- as this progresses it gives the feeling that it’s gradually slowing, but in reality I think it’s just staying at the same pace. At the ninth minute mark this weird slowed male voice appears underneath the ‘wall’, the voice talks about god saying that man has control of all animals & creatures- by around the twenty one minute mark this sample has finished, and we slide into a new wall. This time it’s a battering mixture of low-end thick & juddering noise which is mixed with rushing ’n’ jittering sub-tones, by just before the twenty seventh minute mark it’s switched to an quite intense mass of billowing/juddering noise, but this is'nt long lasted as it strips down to a more closely ranged selection of thinner/ smaller jitter/judder static tones. By just before the twenty ninth minute the ‘wall’ slow fades out, and we left with the sound of a jungle & waterfall- then we get a dialogue sample of Werner Herzog talking about the pain of nature, then by the thirty first minute the ‘wall’ has faded back in again- this time the ‘wall’s a more crude ‘n’ bass battering, we slip out for one more brief talking sample about the hating the dark/ beast side of man- then the ‘wall’ batters in with a heavy weight mix of bass raped low ranged juddering ‘n’ pummelling, and slightly higher/ crisper jittering. At the thirty seven minute mark we shift to a more static bound whizzing storm type ‘wall’, but fairly soon this starts to fade & drift out into more thin/ minimalistic static grain map of jittering ‘n’ judder grey static crispiness, with Mr Henry picking the odd tone to spin-out into a sustained & hissing drone- underneath this we have another sample talking about all animals been equal to one another. To sum up this is another very cleverly put together & often complex piece of morphing/ progressive wall-making from Mr Henry, and this is certainly one of the highlights of this boxset.
Finishing off the set on the last side(side H) we have a track entitled “Fomite”, and this come from suicidal themed Italian project Nascitari. This tracks wall is around a brutal ‘n’ violent mix of two or three battering ‘n’ juddering low end tonalities. Nascitari weaves these tones together into a tight, relentless & suffocating mass which seems to slowly batter ‘n’ brutalise both ones hearing & brain. The tracks pace is mid paced speed wise, though at times it feels like it swings towards lower speed as the tones seem hammer/ battering around you like huge sounding bleak tonally rain- but I think in reality the track remains fairly locked & similar paced through-out. So this is a nicely intense, un-escapable, and bleak end to boxset.
To sum-up “Seven Domains Of Disgust” is a mostly consistent, and often highly rewarding HNW comp. It seems an aged since someone’s put out a large multi tape or cdr collection such as this, so lets hope this release stimulates some other labels to put out more box sets. If your into HNW this set really is a no brainer, so pop over Kafek Rex’s website & pick up one of the twenty copies of this before there all gone!.