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 Review archive:  # a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

A View From Nihil /TFT - Untitled split [Phage Tapes - 2010]

This untitled c70 split brings together two of the most adventurous and creative projects working in today’s world-wide HNW scene. Both parties released two of the most impressive releases of 2010; A View From Nihil put out the tar black bass lined nihilism of  "Triumph Of The Broken Will", and  TFT(with Insurgent) put out “The Shape of Static To Come” which showcased a stripped often  futuristic sounding and minimalistic take on the genre.

So I was very excited by the proposition of split from theses two project, and boy this doesn’t let down in either quality or creativeness, and it also sees both projects taking their sound down different and often surprising sonic paths. The screen printed dark green cassette tape comes in a wonderful simplistic but highly fitting and effective black card sleeve with sliver ink, for projects names and tracks titles, and a series of three thick and straight screen printed  green lines on the front of the sleeve. And on the inside three group of smaller straight green screen printed lines that are rewardingly raised from the sleeves surface.

On the first side we find A View From Nihil's track which is entitled “Tesla”, and this starts off with a winter bound like crackle that soon builds into receptive and sliding tone loop- it brings to mind what sounds you might get if you attached a contact mic to a ski as some one was going down an icy/ snow hill. With-in the first two minutes the 'wall' starts to get a lot more manic and overwhelming with the icy and snow bound crackle ‘n’ descend tones come at you from all angles; these wonderful enclosing you in this blue ‘n’ frost bound tomb of tones. At around the four minute mark this buzzing electro judder pulse starts to poking its head through the chilling and intense tone map, and with in a few minutes this starts to take over the track with a  'wheel on icy and uneven ground ' loop of texture in place too. But by the 8th minute the electro tone has gone and the rolling icy wheel texture has been joined by more juddering, crackling and circular tonality.  Around the 11th minute mark yet another tone raises in the ‘wall’, and this time it’s like an idling snow plough engine- this tone nicely takes over the track in a very pleasing manner seemingly getting more judder and vibration bound as it goes on…you can almost feeling it vibrations in your body as if your physically holding onto the driving wheel of the snow plough. Nearing the twenty minute mark it becomes a lot more judder bound sounding like a recording of something vibrating on a vehicle dashboard at faster and faster speeds; then just as you feel it could'nt judder any harder this great electro static throb ‘n’ jitter  tone forces it way in control of the tracks structure with the judder just been made out under the electro dwell ‘n’ hack. Then once more at the around the 24th minute another tone moves in, this time it’s like this tight and icy drilling sound- which rather brought to mind someone drilling into ice with a fairly thin drill bit. At around the thirty minute mark the ‘wall’ starts to become more hissing ‘n’ jittering static mixed with wet swirling ‘n’ drilling tonalities- these reduces down to a violent vinyl skip ‘n’ deep drone as the track exists just before the 35th mintue. Simply put “Tesla” is a great and shifting example of creative HNW texturing that really does take you on a brutal and very rewarding tonal adventure.

 

Over onto side two and we an untitled track by Italian based TFT which takes up the whole side of tape. It all starts out with this bass like billowing drone that has slight jittering static flicks on the end of the tone. the  ‘wall’ here brings to mind a mixture of distant 'car in tunnel' like droning with a flickering and billowing flag tonalities. The ‘wall’ has this great muffled, big and larbouring yet oddly soothing and deeply entrancing feel about it. As the track progresses it gets moves from more flicking and jitter elements (with a great nervy and caffeine high feel), though to stuck ‘n’ dyeing machine gear muffled droning, though to  sudden rushes of skipping ‘n’ trapped static, and boat rope unreeling - yet none of these textural elements really deviate or push too far away the tracks original original road drone meets static billowing tone seeting. In the last few minutes a stop 'n' start skip weaves it 's way through the track,  and this ends up stoping the ‘wall’ altogether. So another great and creative slice of HNW wall-making from TFT which sees him moving his often sleek and focused HNW sounds onto more muffled and bass bound territory- yet he still keeps his distinctive and original way of ‘wall’ making.

So truly this c70 is a great, great split with both artists offering up an excellent, creative and rewarding tracks. Clearly this is one of the highlights of last years HNW releases, and if I played it sooner this would have easily appeared in my best of 2010- go get one of these before the pressing of forty five tapes runs out!

Rating: 5 out of 5Rating: 5 out of 5Rating: 5 out of 5Rating: 5 out of 5Rating: 5 out of 5

Roger Batty
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