A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin - Nightmares Persist [Toxic Industries/Irritant Series - 2010] | "Nightmares Persist” is the first full length release from Richard Ramirez(Texas noise legend with numerous projects) relatively recent fixed HNW/ boiling static texture project A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin which takes it’s name from the LSD orgy and lesbian dream soaked Italian giallo movie from 1971 directed by Italian gore weaver Lucio Fulci. The release comes in the form of a CDR with a total running time of just over forty three minutes. The album presents the listener with two untitled track in all- the first track is just shy of the thirty two minute mark & the second track is just under the eleven minute mark. Track one slaps straight in with a boiling ‘n’ ragging ‘wall’ of fizzing, searing and melting noise- for the ‘wall’ Ramirez mixes together boiling grain static descends with cascading ‘n’ melting judders. The track remains mainly fixed and extremely battering for it’s first quarter or so, but after this point Ramirez adds in very subtle shifts to both main textured patterns. Mainly none of these shifts are vast or really noticeable, but on one or two occasions there are sudden stop/starts in the ‘wall’s’ structure or lines of longer held sustain in the ‘walls’ structure. All told the ‘walls’ effective in it’s rush boil ‘n cascade, it just rather lacks that magical additive edge meaning it does start to drag around the twenty minute mark. Track twos ‘wall’ is built around this mixture of muffled train or tube tunnel like drone ‘n’ billow, and hacking crunchy static sonic barbwire like loops. It brings to mind been strapped into some bizarre and sadistically torture machine that travelling down an endless underground tunnel that’s wind whipped. The machine your straped to mixers together flame thrower singers ‘n’ roast, with meat knife like hackings. This tracks ‘wall’ feels a lot less firm and punishing then the first track, though it still remains fairly fixed in its two central elements along out it’s lenght length. For me this is the stand out of the two tracks here as it attempts something a little different with the HNW template, and at times it has almost bleak ‘n’ weathered industrial feel about it. So in conclusion this release offers up one long ‘n’ battering ‘wall’ of fairly fixed walled noise which is effective though a little underwhelming. And one shorter and more weathered battered slice of more bleak industrial walled noise. Not one of Ramirez most memorable releases, but it has it’s momments Roger Batty
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