Zionist — Yea, We Wept
This new project really follows in the footsteps of great Gate's related release like Vargrwulf’s - "Black Supremacy" & Peiiste’s - "Blood Sacriifice" with it’s dense, atmospheric and noisily processed field recordings that are built into textured noise masses, but fittingly for the change of project name this does have it’s own sonic identity and vibe.
Each side of tape features a single side long track, and the first sides track is entitled “There we sat Down”. This first sides track starts out with an intense & weathered trapped wind tunnel like textured field of sound, with Gates creating this great feeling of rushing and airless panic as if your holding on for dear life to the edge of some vast descending air vent. Then at around the seven and a half minute mark Gates lets out the huge thumping ‘n’ tire bouncing texture, which really makes one jump the first few plays through the track. From here on in Gates adds in drifting banks of highly muffled ‘n’ melted traffic like sounds which really add a surreal and dark/ violent dreamy edge to proceedings. As the track ebbs ‘n’ batters towards it’s end point Gates masterfully un-muffles and un-melts the road field recordings so they slowly but surely edge from the mysterious to the mundane.
Over to side two & this tracks entitled “Yea, We Wept”, and this track starts out with a rapidly growing rushing of water tone. The aquatic texturing starts off slightly echoed & seared, but as the time ticks by it slowly becomes more dense, swirling and brutally Zen like entrancing in it’s feel. Gates really managers to produce a swirl and brutal maelstrom of downward aquatic tension here that just seems to pull you deeper and deeper into it’s sound rush. At around the eight minute thirty second point Gates adds in a deeper more raging & drilling like tone which pummels on & off through the tracks guts, and this seems to heighten once again the brutally & hazed out sound reality of the track. The rest of the track sees Gates effectively slide ‘n’ grate through different layers of rushing, descending and raging billowing in a great intense organic manner.
So this opening shot from the Zionist project offers up two fifteen minute tracks that melt, rage and noisily boil up meshes of natural & man-made field recordings into dense, surreal, hypnotic, heady and highly rewarding noise stews. Certainly for those who have enjoyed Gates other field recording based work, but I can also see this appealing to those looking for something a little different in the HNW scene, and those who enjoyed noised-up & creative field recording composition.