Yotzeret Sheydim — Returning Home, Machine Gun In Hand

Here’s a long cassette from Yotzeret Sheydim, now established as a notable figure in contemporary HNW and noise. Self-released in 2022, Returning Home, Machine Gun In Hand has four long tracks, all just over 20 minutes, and blazes an idiosyncratic harsh noise wall trail. Yotzeret Sheydim is Alyx III, and the cassette is dedicated to her grandpa, Dan, who, according to the track titles, spent World War II killing, or attempting to kill, Nazis. The inlay is filled with photos of Dan: in uniform, looking dapper in a portrait photo, and with his grandchildren; so it’s a very personal release, and one charged with political intent too.

The first track, Browning 1919 Covered In Sweat And Grime, is the most idiosyncratic here. It’s founded on a solid bed of mid-tempo wall, quite tight but skittling and scuffing along; however, the sound field is dominated by the foregrounded chirping of a synth, or something with synth-like textures. These textures - which modulate and sound very ‘wet’ - mimic the movements of HNW crackles, creating a genuinely melodic HNW; I’m possibly overstating this, as it’s most definitely atonal and indeed akin to synth babble, but regardless this is the first time I’ve heard someone combine HNW with (the potential for) melodicism so convincingly and neatly. Crouching Away From The Holy Land, Bayonets At The Ready, the second piece, is straighter wall noise, but even then there’s an effective ethereality to the textures, as if they float and drift. They do disappear into one stereo channel at points, and there’s some subtle modulation or processing going on, utilising the stereo field; in fact, it’s possible that there’s a deliberate structure, starting off dominating the left channel, before slowly shifting and ending in the right with harder textures, but the overall effect is rather calming - despite the title. The third work, Grandpa Dan Returned To Europe As An Adult To Kill Nazis, is an effective chunk of stealthy wall noise, grounded in a hard, twitchy bass drone that sounds like the most subtle PE synth churn you might imagine; over this, nice flecks of higher frequency crackles dance and weave and in and out. There is a definite rhythmic element, but it feels completely arrhythmic - with close listening it almost sounds like some severely manic drum & bass/breakcore compressed and distorted to obliteration. The fourth and final track, Antifascism Is In My Blood, feels like it borrows a little from each of the preceding tracks, with more subtle synth-like noises akin to the first track, combined with straighter HNW fare - though again it’s neither fully raging nor ANW. This position marks out an interesting area, a contemplative soundworld that happily sits in HNW territory but is clearly doing something different.

 

This is a solid tape, and shamefully the first material I’ve properly heard from Yotzeret Sheydim/Alyx III - something I will have to redeem. I’ve heard people experimenting with overt processing, or synths, in HNW before and often I’ve felt that the walls have strayed too far from HNW for the label to maintain any justification. However, here Yotzeret Sheydim convincingly combines those worlds. It won’t be for everyone, but I think the tape is doing something interesting, walking the perimeters of harsh noise wall and staying just inside the line. A recommended listen - and a worthy tribute to a righteous warrior.