Vomir & Marc Hurtado — 2011

“2011” brings together the French master of walled noise Vomir, with fellow French-man & respected musician, film director, painter, poet and producer Marc Hurtado. Vomir will hopefully need little or no introduction to readers of M[m], as we’ve reviewed well over 40 of the projects releases over the years. Marc Hurtado is the co- founder with his brother Eric Hurtado of the French multimedia band Etant Donnés, and  since 1977 he made over 20 albums collaborating with the likes of  Alan Vega, Genesis P Orridge, Lydia Lunch, Michael Gira, Marc Cunningham or Bachir Attar and the Master Musicians of Jajouka

For the album Marc Hurtado is credited with  instruments, voice, mix & production. And Vomir is credited with static sound. The CD release conists of twelve tracks that each last between just over the three minute mark to just over the eighteen minute mark. And  I guess the best way to describe the release is a chilling & often unnerving mixture of textured noise, eerier & jarring voice textures, and dark drone matter. 

Each of the albums twelve tracks finds Vomir’s nihilistic walled noise textures either cut-up into churning industrial like patterns, or fed out into ominous yet searing & airless drone drifts. To these sound structures Hurtado sometimes adds jarring or atmospheric wordless voice elements. The pace through-out the twelve tracks is kept fairly varied, yet nightmarish & dense with the whole album creating a very chillingly seared & at times jumpy atmospheric dark/brutal soundtrack.

It’s always great to see the HWN sound used in different context, or manipulated in original/ creative ways, and that’s exactly what this great collaborative release does. All told this is a consistently rewarding release that I can see appealing to not just the HNW fans, but a wider sonic market that takes in all manner of moody yet extreme sound making….lets hope these two decide to work together again in the future.