Richard Ramirez & Julien Skrobek - Doriana Bridge [Hallucination Tapes - 2016]Doriana Bridge is collaboration between two of the most respected & influential figures from with-in the HNW/ textured noise based genre. US legend & wall sound originator Richard Ramirez, and Paris based Julien Skrobek- who has touched down on pretty much every flavour of static bound/ wall-crafting in his many projects. The release came in the form of a C30 tape, and digital download- sadly the tape is long gone, so ones only option now is to download this release. The release appears on Skrobek's only label Hallucination Tapes- with the physical edition featuring a plain & un-labelled tape in a small zip lock baggie- which features a folded single-sided computer printed sleeve. On the front this takes in what looks like a picture of a rainbow with someone curved hand in the foreground, and the back features black text against a plain white background.
Featured here is a single track- which is split in half on the tape, and as a single track on the digital download. It comes in at 22.40 mark. And offered up is a work that features a collection of subtle morphing & adjusting wall layers. The track opens with a brief blend a deep sub-bass rumble & sudden forking stabs. With-in less than a minute we are into the first of the ‘walls’ main textural blends- this sees the pair bringing together a blend of hazed rumble ‘n’ knocking, with a topping of more higher ranged & rapid jittering. By around the 3rd minute we’ve sequence into a rushing-yet-distant drone, and this is edged with a collection of smaller grain bound texturing- these focus towards a more jittering & uniformed spitting static mesh
The next major shift occurs at around sixteen & a half minute mark- we get a sudden high pitch rapidly growing then fading, before we move in towards a rough & tumble bound descending rumble, which is edged with rushing juddering & skittering grain based texturing.
On my first few plays though I found the track seemed a little unspectacularly & not terrible creative with-in it’s layer make-up. But as I’ve replayed it more I’ve noticed the very skilful, controlled & subtle nuanced detail with-in the ‘wall- so this is one you really have to replay more than a few times for it to come to life.
Still I can’t say I was as blown away as I was expecting to be by Doriana Bridge, considering who is involved. So in conclusion this is a well tooled & subtle developing example of ‘wall-craft’ from Skrobek & Ramirez, it’s just not a memorable or as impactful as past collaborations the pair have done with others in the past. Roger Batty
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