Walmart/Hana Haruna — Split

Here we have a split between two US wall-noise creators- with each offering up a single-length track, and then one shorter collab between them. With the tone moving between the battering ‘n’ buffering, to the more textured/ entrancing.

The release appears on Portland Oregon’s Basement Corner Emission- available as either a digital download or a CD- I’m reviewing the former. For the artwork we get a blurred picture of Walmart’s Blue, white, and yellow sign. The theme here is supermarket consumerism. The release can be found here. 

So first up we have a track from Walmart- this is entitled “Circleville Supercenter”, and comes in at dead on the thirty-minute mark. This ‘wall’ is just of basic, brutal, and totally unforgiving form. It’s built around a rapid & dense blend of bass-bound billowing, rushing static grain, and some slightly jittering subtone sweep. The whole thing feels akin to been fed into an ancient, slightly smoking ‘n’  lightly sparking, broken escalator - that’s manically running into a dusty & greasy abandoned department store basement. A truly head-grinding unrelenting experience.

Next is Hana Haruna's track  “Cleanup In Aisle”- which once again comes in at dead on the thirty-minute mark.  This is a much more textured affair- though with a churningly hissing edge. It’s built around a blend of muffled buffeting, evenly rattling metal-on-metal spindle tonality and subtle searing hiss wash.  I enjoyed the rather actively layered & slightly industrial feel to this ‘wall’, and got very much sucked into the clattering/ hissing rush of the whole thing.

Finally, we have the ten-minute collaboration track  “Repeal Prop. 47”. Here we find a very weighty & pressing mix of slower-churning bass hum and more choppy texturing- taking rattling spins & loose clutters. In its last four minutes the more defined rattle ‘n’ clutters drop out, with the oppressive bass churn coming more to the fore.  It’s a most worthwhile collab track- which I could easily have listened to for another ten minutes or so.

So, in conclusion, this is a well-realized split/ collaboration- with a decent theme, and three rewarding ‘walls’