The Infinity Series/ project was a series of 18 CDR releases, which appeared between 2011 & 2012  on the now defunct Sweet Solitude label(run by UK wall-maker James Killick of Love Katy, Small Hours, ect). Each volume  in the  series saw a different HNW act attempting ambient and experimental forms of walled noise. The series was meant to be open ended, and each release featured similar minimal artwork( originally they were meant to all look identical, but for some reason vols 16 to 18 went for a different design).
In 2014 the series was resurrected on Vagary Records(Killick’s new label) in tape form, and lets hope it’s here to stay for good, as the original series released some excellent experimental walled noise works.

Sean E Matzus is a Houston Texas based sound maker, whose many projects move from atmospheric walled noise, pummelling & dense noise jams, through to drone & electro-acoustic compositions. He’s one of the key figures behind harsh noise collective Black Leather Jesus( which was original formed by HNW pioneer Richard Ramirez). And  some of his  many other projects take in Last Rape( also with Richard Ramirez), The Secret Geography( with Tanner Garza), theNIGHTproduct, A Week Of Kindness, etc.  
Thewhitehorse project  started in 2011, and has so far released around twelve releases- taking in CDR’s, tapes, a Lathe, and a few splits.

Theme wise this release is based around a swamp bound man like creature, and here’s what Mr Matzus says about the release on Vagary Records  site’ As to the story, that’s an oblique reference in itself. The Returned Man in Swamp Thing is a possessing spirit. For these recordings, I used a “base” source of recordings I made using dead material. Branch cuttings, fallen leaves and old acorns, that kind of thing. In the recording process, I have reanimated them. Going deeper with the metaphor, much like the returned man of the story, those dead materials go on to exert an influence over all the other sources at work in the pieces. There is a mysterious, unsettling quality to the recordings due to the play of those sources. And, by extension, that influence and imprint is passed on to the listener. I don’t believe there is any such thing as “just random noise.” I quietly buy in to the Coil school of experimental music having a alchemical, magical quality if you are willing to submit to the imprint, just the same as I believe that of abstract art (The feeling of really submitting to a Rothko or a Twombly painting, for example.)’

So enough about the release background/ themes ect….lets dig into it’s sonic innards. The first sides track is entitled “The Returned Man Smiles”, and this  is built around a rather muffled & aged wall of continual juddering sound- the textures used here have quite an churning industrial feel to them, but because of the way Mr Matzus has processed  the elements, they have rather lost their more seared edges, and instead become this suffocating, airless & endless pummelling. It’s difficult to tell, but I think there’s around three possibly four layers of textures here- all of them are focused in a on very a fairly similar low-to- mid range, and together they create this seemingly un-escapable yet oddly entrancing wall. For the most part structure wise this is a fairly fixed example of ‘wall-making’, through the track does  get more & more muffled & degraded as it progresses with the layers of tone getting more & more merged 'n' melted into each other to create a even more pummelling sludge of sound- yet it never fully breaks down, always just keeping it’s  muffled & densely suffocating thickness.

Flipping over the side B, and we have a track entitled “ The Returned Man Smiles”, and once again the layer elements used here have quite an industrial focus. After the degrading & muffled  fixed wall  pummelling of the first sides track, this second sides piece has more defined & different toned layers to it, and also there is subtle movement with in the ‘walls’ layers too.  It opens up with a mixture of: A  continual rolling ‘n’ ominous almost bass drum like rumble, a thick ‘n’ dense crusty judder, a higher pitched jittering ‘n’ gratting sweeping tone, and this roaming sort of thin billowing wind like texture. As the track process Matzus adds in buried sweeps of  industrial like ( yet organic sourced) slow clanks ‘n’ batterings into the mix, along with a few other subtones- to me the whole thing very much brought to mind some morphing, eerier & shifting mass of roots, branches, human limbs, and vegetation- bringing to mind a more organic & earth bound take Tetsuo: The Iron Man.  By around the ninth minute the track seems to add in another more muffled & smeared sort of judder- this briefly seems to blunt the tracks intensity, but fairly soon the element merges with the rest of the textures & the suffocation dense-ness is back. Through-out the main structure of the ‘wall’ remains fairly firm, but we do get some shift in the layers of texture- as some alter, new ones join, and also( possibly) leave.

All told this is another rewarding & worthy edition to Infinity Series- with Mr Matzus creating two worthy & theme fitting atmospheric  ‘walls’ that blur  the lines between HNW & ANW.  This tape appeared in March 2014, in a criminally  ltd edition of just ten copies…so it’s  highly unlikely there are any left  copies with Vagary Records, but lets hope it gets a either a digital reissue, or maybe one day the whole series will get a much deserved box set reissue.