Various HNW & Noise Artists — Giallo Duro Muro Rumore E Sadomasochismo Elettroni
Fittingly for a movie influenced compilation the two tapes come in an old VHS box which features on the outside sleazy video style artwork- on the front cover we have a picture of a terrorized women with a black gloved hand over her month, then the artist credits are written out bellow the picture like film credits. Over on the back cover we have a blurred red and blue tinged picture of a pole dances or strippers legs, and some text detailing the compilations concept a bit more. Inside the VHS box we have a few pieces of rather fitting yellow paper( Giallo means yellow in English) listing the tracks on offer & the projects details, then of course we have the two tapes which are attached to the inside of the box via Velcro strips.
Moving onto the tapes themselves, and on the first side of tape one we have a side long track Four Files entitled “Cold Eyes Of Fear (Your Last Scream Will Be The Loudest)”. Four Files is one of the few Richard Ramirez(Werewolf Jerusalem ,Black Leather Jesus, An Innocent Young Throat-Cutter and many other projects) linked Giallo obsessed HNW projects and it’s been going since 2008, with a fairly changing line –up that’s now thinned down to just a two piece of Richard Ramirez & Robert Newsome(White Gimp Mask, Black Leather Jesus & The Girl in the Wooden Horse Torture). The line-up for this track features Christain Perdomo, Richard Ramirez, Melisea Perdomo & Jonas Teunissen(Hatchet For The Honeymoon, Massacre In Dinosaur Valley & RapeCity).
The track starts out with a disturbing yet groovy sample of 70’s lite jazz funk soundtracking and a sounds of a women been attacked & killed. Then pretty soon we drop into the ‘wall’ which starts off been made of disorientating layers of stop/ start noise billows; these tones run into each other over this weird buried & semi-harmonic texture that could once have been a bass lined giallo soundtrack sample. As the track goes on the stop/ start drones seem to take on more of an extreme industrial feel, yet they still remain constant & fairly fixed in there patterns. At around the 8th minute we drop into a thick & constant droning wall of billow/circular noise which wraps round in a pleasing submerging manner. As we move towards the 11th minute things get jumpy and uneasy again as the collective move into a mass of stop/start pumping static like attacks, that brought to mind a speed-up or frenzied attack on someone with a cattle killing air gun similar to the one used by the hitman in “No country for old men” and in Michael Haneke’s “Benny’s Video”. As this element goes on it seems to get faster, more blurred and erratic in it’s feel, also underneath these elements are once again muffled 'n' mashed giallo soundtrack elements, and over time they all nicely meld together into a shunting wall of suffocating sound. The last few moments drop into another movie sample with one man saying to another “it must be some kind of crazy nut who perpetrated these crimes”- it's a great end to an excellent slice of giallo themed HNW.
Moving onto the second side of tape one & we find two tracks from German based HNW project Wallkeeper. First up we have a track entitled “Gefangen Zwischen Zwei Mauern”(which in English means Imprisoned Between Two Walls). This track it’s built around two noise textures- a rolling ‘n’ crusty bass hack, and a brutal ‘n’ oppressive juddering/ boiling tone. Wallkeeper feeds these two elements into a wonderful airless, nasty & truly un-escapable ‘wall’ of sound. The track just seems to get more & more enclosing/cruel as it goes along, and just as it exits around the fourteen minute mark you feel almost breath-less and mentally worn down.
The second track on side two is entitled “Vier Fliegen Auf Grauem Samt” (or in English Four flies On Grey Velvet) which of course takes it’s name from Dario Argento's 1971 classic giallio movie. This ‘wall’ starts out as a mixture of rolling ‘n’ juddering bass bound static texturing, and buzzing ’n’ fuzzed lo-fi drilling almost semi harmonic noise texturing. As the track moves on the rolling ‘n’ juddering gets more crusty, battering & lo-fi hacking in it’s feel, with the buzzing ‘n’ fuzzed drilling element seemingly becoming smaller yet no less rewarding it it’s feel. Nearing the 7th minute the rolling ‘n’ juddering element starts to get nicely caught ‘n’ dragged out as if the black gloved killer is getting tired from his constant stab of flesh.. yet he still carries on in a slower manner. Also the buzzing ’n’ fuzzed element gets more draining, insect like & grating in it’s feel. So this side of tape offers up another two great, atmospheric yet intensely brutally slices of Giallo influenced HNW.
Onto the second c30 tape & we have a change of noise genre as we move onto new Jersey based My Black Gloves who boil up a searing & often brutal harmonic tinged mixture of harsh noise, vocaless power electronics, overloaded retro synth scaping & death ambient. The tapes is taken up by six fairly short tracks, three tracks per side, and these have titles like “Killer Sniffs Smelly Shoes”, “Vice And Pantyhose” and “High Heel Golden Shower”(!!!)..each track is a fairly manic attack on the senses with overloaded retro synth textures, & all manner of overloaded & battering electro fired noise textures. The tracks switch from all manner of noisey choppings, judderings, throbs, punchers & textural swirls. Along with tripped-out & deathly groovy reverb trails, bent & melted giallo sound track elements. This tapes ok & it’s nice to hear a none HNW take on the giallio themed noise, but sadly for the most part I found the tracks a bit too random & unfocused with a almost 'child let lose in the studi'o feel to some of the tracks. Sure there are the odd clever or effective moments, but for the most part this tape does little for me.
So to sum-up the first and longest tape of this two tape set is a great collection of Giallo infulnced HNW. Sadly the second disc rather lets the whole thing down with it’s amateurish & hit ‘n’ miss mixture of harmonic harsh noise, melted ‘n’ bent soundtrack elements & overloaded retro electronics. Well worth pick-up for the first tape alone, but just don’t expect too much from the second tape.