Wet Dream Asphyxiation — Hearse Sessions

"Hearse Sessions” is a c120 tape that offers up two hour long sides of dense, brutal yet entrancing walled noise from this Oregon based project. And as the title suggests both tracks with-in where created with just using a hearse ( a  1985 Buick funeral coach to be precise) as sound source, though of course both tracks really retain none of the field recordings originally origins, as WDA works them into huge walls of sound.

The first side’s untitled track is a huge sounding slice of taut & rapid billowing/ juddering static noise tones that are weaved together into a thick enveloping mass of sound.  Early on in the tracks massive runtime there are a few moments where the ‘wall’ seems to almost break down  & stumble in a few places, but these are only brief, and  as the track progresses it just seems to get more & more enclosing/dense in it’s feel. Along the tracks length WDA adds in mostly subtle shifts in the ‘walls’ layers; but  these along  with the tracks great  feeling of urgency, and the addictive nature of  noise tones used, makes this hour long track seemingly slip by in half its real runtime.

Onto the second side, and once again WDA creates a huge sounding wall of sound, but this time it’s slightly more slurred & wonkily shifting in it’s feel.  To start with the ‘walls’ based around a galloping & pummelling taut/ fixed rumble, which has this seascick & wavering jittering sliding back & forth over it, and it times it almost sounds like the tape may unreel in your player.  By around the 7th minute the seasick jitter  starts to become more of a  distant windswept billow ‘n’ bay- the element also seems to become more sub-tone like in it’s feel, and it doesn’t seem effect  the rest of the ‘wall’ so much either.  After it’s wonky & unwell start the track really settles down for it’s next thirty or so minutes  into a compelling oceanic like expanse of steady rumble & subtle wind battered subtones.  By around the 35 minute mark the sweeping billow ‘n’ bay tone seems to become more prominent in the ‘walls’ make-up, as it starts to make the track feel a little off balance/ off kilter once again, through it’s no way as structure bending as the start of the track.  As the track goes on it steadily become more seasick & skewed in it’s feeling, and in it’s last few minutes the sub-tone becomes quite pressing & close in….like it going to burst the surrounding ‘wall’ and pour out it’s wonky brutality all over you, yet it never does.

So  to sum up  this c120 tape presents the listener with two equally effective & rewarding lengthy slabs of walled noise. With the first track been dense yet subtle shifting , and the second track been a great mixture of wonky brutality & dense oceanic moodiness.