Missing Boys - Self Titled [HarshFuckedForLife - 2010]‘Missing Boys’ is an HNW project that often concentrates on static patterned noise making and reduced Harsh Noise Walls. The project brings together Richard Ramirez (of Werewolf Jerusalem, Black Leather Jesus ,An Innocent Young Throat-Cutter, Vice Wears Black Hose and many other projects) and Geoff Markoff (wasp Honeymoon, S.S. Electronics and Viking Movement). This self titled tape offers up a c90’s worth of shifting static textures, thinned wall making and some thicker nasty moments. The sleeve of the tape stays close to the projects name as it’s actually features on the front cover a picture of a missing four year-old boy. And inside the sleeve are details of how and where he disappeared which adds quite a sad, yet slightly disturbing feel to the release. Side one starts with a loose and quite soothing downpour of steady paced rain like static thats interspersed with sudden faster rushers of tighter and tenser torrential downpours. By the fourth minute the track moves away from it’s more soothing claims towards more jagged, coarse and detailed static patterns, though it still keeps some of it's rain storm tendencies. The faster rushers of static still appear ever so often, but each time we return to the slower paced and longer dips of static patterns they seem slightly altered and changed by the sudden and hammering attacks. The rest of this side/ track sees the pair alternate between faster and thicker burst of static tone abuse, and more crackle, jitter and judder bound thinner static sheets of attack- through these thinner moments do become more weathered, bucked and damaged the further the track goes on. All told it’s a great track that builds slowly a real feeling of claustrophobe and tension over time. Over to side two and we start off in a lot thicker, cruder and crusty place than the first sides relatively soothing entry. This sides ‘wall’ is built around this quite fast and bucked set of juddering static tones that are weaved by crisper static under grain. Like the first side there are once more sudden rushers of more speeder and thicker runs of static, but these feel less in strong contrast than the first sides switch between thinner and thicker tone walls. As the track progresses it seems to become more juddering and at times almost clogging in its feel, with the faster and nastier sudden attacks becoming less and shocking or different than the main longer dwells. The rest of the track just seems to dwell more in two of three patterns or sequence of static tones- it’s ok I guess though I felt it stretched on too long for it’s forty five minute running time and started to become a little stale and samey in the second half, it also didn’t seem to have the tension of the first side. So in summing up the first sides great with it’s reduced take on wall making, the static patterns, it’s sudden fast/ thicker runs and it great building feeling of suffocating tension. But the second sides is ok for the first twenty minutes, but after this it becomes too repetitive(in a bad way), tiresome and ultimately uninteresting- so a rather mixed release really. Roger Batty
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