Last Rape - Sweets From A Stranger [Urashima - 2011]“Sweets From a stranger” is the second in the series of fourteen seven inch vinyl releases celebrating the many projects of highly prolific and influential Texas noise artists Richard Ramirez. This seven inch features two short ‘n’ brutal yet atmospheric tracks from the Last Rape project which sees Ramirez collaborating with Sean E. Matzus(also of Black Leather Jesus, The Secret Geography and In The Land Of Archers). As with anything put out on the great Italian Urashima label the presentation here is rather classy and grimly distinctive with the labels trademark sliver screen printed black card sleeve shrank down to seven inch size, inside the sleeve is the black label on black vinyl we’ve come to expect. There also enclosed a black ink on black card inlay that features on one side the tracks timings and details, a hand number(this has a tiny edition of twenty vinyl pressings), and on the other side is inversed artwork image of a female face and neck either been stabbed or strangled. Also inside the sleeve a 13x10 colour photo of a female tied to a matress-less bed frame with the projects logo above her body. Side ones track is entitled “Part one” and it finds the pair throwing this raging wall of bass bound and roar noise at the listener; weaved though the main roaring ’n’ raging wall is this slightly harmonic and eerier alarm like tone that moves between been quite audible and buried in blacked roar. It’s a great seared and intense track that has quite creepy and enraged undertones and it slides in at the three minutes and seventeen seconds mark. Over onto side two and we have “Part two” which is slightly shorter at the three minutes and fifteen seconds mark. This sides track is all about bassy judder bound wall making, and it finds the pair offering up this deep roaring judder that skipped over by very small static points. Again it’s another great track, though it lacks much of creepy and unsettling feel of the first sides... it more than makes up for it in the brutal judder bound department. I guess you could see the first sides tracks as the creepy and perverse stalking, and this sides as the brutal and enraged attack. So in all in a satisfyingly brutal seven inch release that has some neat creepy and unsettling undertones to it. I look forward to hearing whats next in this series of fourteen releases. Roger Batty
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