Vomir/Emile Bojesen — Concrete

Concrete is a digital split that brings together an around a twenty-minute slab of walled noise from French crude master of the form Vomir, and a manipulated field recording of concrete mixing truck from Brit sound maker & hardcore- punk-ranter Emile Bojesen. This is the second release on recently launched label Hoopoe Industries- which is run by Bojesen with it been 'home to music from a variety of disciplines, often implicitly or explicitly relating to written work.'

The release is available in MP3 & FLAC formats- with the downloaded coming with a PDF featuring a few quotes relating to Concrete & full credits. Fitting the theme of the release the cover is a monochrome picture of a builder’s flatbed truck with the word concrete on.

So first up on the split we have the Vomir track, this is self-titled and runs at the twenty minutes & twenty-second mark. Here we have a fairly typical-if-no-less entrancing example of the Frenchman take on the walled noise form. The ‘wall’ brings together a fairly rapid & constantly churning mixture of pummeling low-end rumble, slightly cluttering static bound circular agitations, and distant crude drone sustain edged with blunt knockings. Together these elements create very much the vibe of a concrete mixer- but it’s a concrete mixer filled with rancid sewage, decaying flesh tipped bones, and thickening lumps of tar. As with all effective examples of ‘wall’ craft, we get that feeling of textural movement/ shifting patterns- but in reality, like most of the Frenchman’s sonic wall-work, it’s very much fixed & set in its structure & unfold.

Lastly, we, of course, have the track from Mr. Bojesen, this again is self-title, and slides in at spot on the eighteen-minute mark. This track finds him utilizing a field recording of a mobile concert mix truck, and again we get very much a ‘wall’ of sound- with clearly more of a machine-made feel to it. The sound setting here is a lot denser & muffled than the Vomir track- and we find here a blend of bluntly purring & droning low end, and slightly skittering & scarp bound churning- with a few knocking, hacking & rattling sub-tones surfacing ever so often. The low end certainly has a rather sinister brooding presence, while the main of the sonic picture is taken by the more circular skittering-to-rattling top layers. As far as I can make out it seems Bojesen is seemingly shifting each layer in gradually tightening lines of noise punishment, and these feel more deliberate/real than the Vomir track- all creating the feeling that one is getting pulled deeper & deeper down into the mixers constantly churning & limb battering inners.

All told this is nicely executed & themed split, I, of course, would have preferred to have had a physical tape or CD release of the split, maybe with some concrete related element. But as a digital split goes it’s certainly one of the better & pro presented I’ve seen…so if you’d like to get hold of the download head here