Fouke/Vomir/Dead Body Collection/Sacred - Monolithic Interference [Geräuschmanufaktur - 2016]Monolithic Interference is a recent HNW four way split. It brings together two C30 tapes, and features a 'wall' per side of tape. The release features three seasoned & respected wall noise acts, and one more recent addition to the scene. Taking part here we have: Fouke- which is the Bigfoot themed project of multi project linked & high influential US noise artists Richard Ramirez. Vomir- the notorious Black bag wearing French king of walled noise. Dead Body Collection- the highly prolific, though now sadly defunct, Serbian project. And lastly scene newcomer Sacred Climax – a German HNW project that focuses in on sleazy & porn themed wall-craft. The two pro-labelled white tapes a long slightly oversized A6 clear tape box set- it features a monochrome & murky sleeve that takes in collages of medical diagrams of ears, and related organs. The release comes in an edition of 30 copies, but I’m imagining these would disappear quickly considering the names in involved here. All the tracks here are untitled, and first out of the bag on side A we have Fouke’s track. This opens with the eerier sound of something entering a room, or walking across a wooden floor- which brought to my mind images of a Bigfoot creeping onto a moon-light porch in the middle of the night. Anyway the noise kicks in fairly soon, and to start with it’s built around a worming & muffled low-end judder/ rumble, which is surrounded by this thinner scrapping ‘n’ circularly dragging static noise patterns. As it track progresses more complex layers of the thinner secondary elements are added, as Ramirez skilfully pulls you into the beastly deep woods atmosphere of the track. Also we get some nice weather battering & shifting going through the deeper base element too, all to creating the feeling of being dragged deeper & deeper into the thick forest & the Bigfoots lair. I must confess that Fouke is both one of favourites of Richard’s projects, and one of my all time favourite wall noise project’s- so I’m happy to report this is another highly skilfully & moodily brutal slice of wall-craft, that perfectly summons up it’s theme in such a visually potent manner in ones mind. Flipping over to side B, and we have the Vomir track. And this is fairly typical, though no less brutally satisfying slice of nasty ‘n’ unmoving walled-noise from this French act. It’s built around a blend of crude & unrelenting noise layers- you have: a deep & murky spurting, a rolling rumble, and a series of rapidly chopping yet coarsely thinner noise tones. These are fed together to create a completely overwhelming & suffocating wall of noise, which complete wraps you in it's dense, crude & nasty mass. On side C we have the Dead Body Collection track. This ‘wall’ is a searingly rich & body pinning affair, which brings together layers of rapid rushing & roasting noise matter. Tonal the layer range goes from deep & bass bound though to seared mid-range, with a complete focus on creating rapid & intense HNW. To me the track conjurers up the huge sound & visual imagery of a space rocket taking off, with DBC nicely building up the intense/ face-ripping rush of the whole thing by adding skittering & seemingly speeding sub-tones around the central roaring mass of the whole thing.
So last up on side D we have the Sacred Climax track. And this track brings together a blend of tight ploughing ‘n’ churning layers of muffled static, with a distant undercarriage of male & female sexual moans, grunts & sighs. The static layers are in a fairly narrow grinding pillow like mid-range, with a few hints of more deeper tearing & shredding textures. As the whole thing progresses I can make a thinner wiry sweeps & off- pattern scratches running through the mass. On the whole the ‘wall’ creates a suitable sleazy, suffocating, claustrophobic, and airless feel, which nicely surrounds you in intense sonic mass like a pillows pressing down on your head/ face.
All in all this is a great, great wall-noise split with each project offering up a satisfying & rewarding wall that has it’s own mood & atmospher. As I mentioned above this has a fairly scene generous edition of 30 copies- but I suspected many those will already have gone…so get this now, before you can’t!. Roger Batty
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