Are The Volcanoes Still Active? - Double Standard [Bored Bear Recordings - 2011]“Double Standard” is 6th & mid-way point in the series of twelve monthly 3 inch CDR releases that are going to released through-out 2011 by Irelands Bored Bear Recordings. Each release in the series celebrates, pays tribute and chronicles one of the many projects of highly influential & respected Texas noise artist's Richard Ramirez. Are The Volcanoes Still Active? is one of Ramirez’s more on/ off projects, and it sees him working with Texas based female HNW and Harsh noise artists Melanie Riehle (See Six, Baptist Skin Communiti, Release Helen Rytka, ect. The project has been in existence since 2000, but has only put out a fairly meagre (by Ramirez’s standards) twelve releases since then. This is my first taster of this projects work, but from what’s on offer here I’d say that this project learns more towards the noise ambient/ manipulated sound source side of Richards work. The release features the single title track which slides in at dead on the twenty & a half minute mark. The tracks starts it’s out with this distant fan or heating system like looped cold & cynical drone texture, then a second more prominent and louder machine like drone is added to the structure of the track as we near the two mintue mark. Over the next eight or so minutes the pair deepen and intensify the tracks tension with their dread filled, cold and stern sustained drone loops & insterlocking bleack dwells. Then just after the tenth minute we once more thin back to a more distant & ominous machine like drone, before kicking into to more noisy drone territory around the twelve minute as the pair mix up battering yet locked semi industrial tone dwell with a bleak & cold drone underbelly. The tracks thins back once more time towards the seventeenth minute as the pair create this great eerier and distant sort of tolling cold tone- it sounds like it could be a bell endlessly tolling in a drowned or abounded town square. Over the top of this tolling element they add some nicely & subtle atmospheric wind like buffs & ebbs. All told it’s a great & atmospheric track that shows Ramirez’s more chilling, cinematic and tension building side. So “Double Standard” is another great chapter in this series, and it shows a more subtle & atmospheric side to Mr Ramirez’s sonic talents. I can see this particular release appealing to both fans of atmospheric noise & chilling/ brooding ambience.    Roger Batty
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