zexx-ee & Hana Haruna — Split

Here’s a decidedly perverse focused walled noise split. Bringing together Russian-based zexx-ee, and Portland’s Hana Haruna. Each project serves up a ‘wall’ a piece- with each being as grimly sleazed as the other.

This digital-only release features a grainy photocopy-like picture of a woman in white stockings & suspenders at a urinal, with each project's logo on top- all giving an old-school porn grind vibe. The release is put out by Portland’s Basement Omissions, and can be downloaded directly from here.

First, out of the gate, we have the zexx-ee. The project has been active just this year, and is the work of Zee Jupiter (Laedis, Alex Krycek and Cultus netlabel). It has around five or so releases to its name thus far, and as far as I can gather the project takes its name from a porn actress. Their track is entitled “Pissmelicia”, and the shorter of the two tracks at spot on the eleven-minute mark. It opens with a fading-in mixture of lo-fi billow drone & bird song tweet. At just over the minute mark we shift into a blend of raw bass bay & rattling subtones detail- you can just make out the initial elements from time to time underneath, and it feels very much like the whole thing could suddenly cut out.  At the mid-way point we drop into a mixture of jagged grit bound jitter, and building clutter bound billow- and fairly soon the whole thing rises in its clanging crudity- which towards the end opens into an all out cluttering ‘n’ juddering bound slog

The second track is of course from Hana Haruna, which is one of the projects of long-term HNW/ noise scenester Ken Jamison. The project started in 2018,  and has released nearly two hundred releases to its name. The track title here is “ Kondou Asami” with the track running at spot on the twenty-minute mark. This is a  hypnotically layered wall with a slipping ’n’ sliding structure- bringing together a hissing squirt, rolling on a stone-like grain, and a distant/ murky knock ‘n’ drone. There’s a real feeling of sleazy & oily sweatiness about this track- with one’s mind conjuring up a slowly undulating sea of rub, bucking, and smoothing flesh- Christ at points one can almost smell the track's depraved and heady stench.

In finishing- this is a release for those who enjoy the more perversely tone & themed side of noise in general. With the first track offering up slightly more active ‘walling’, and the second more detailly layered affair.