OAK / A SNAKE IN THE GARDEN “The Enchanted Forest” (Grimeology)

Sweet split/collab tape from these two East Coast best fwend gang/projects. A Snake in the Garden (one dude, apparently) is definitely the hater of the pack, starting the CS off with a gross phasing mixer rumble stacked with background lurk noise, against which he growls echoing Malefic-style vocals. Totally theatrical but great…yet when things kick into pure screech attack mode somehow the intensity lessens. The frequencies are compressed and mid-range, which seems to gate the violence from breaking out into total amp fury. Still, a good offering. Oak go the more steady/static route with “Rods From God,” which burns like an antique incense urn of slo-mo e-bow, drifting jangle, and water-treading sitar accents. Doesn’t really go anywhere, but the trip is plenty pleasant. The B side is the collab, “Sacrificial Wizards,” and it seems like nobody wanted to play leader. Snake holds in his electric venom, but the Oak posse keep their hippie hair trimmed kinda close too, so nobody really ever steps up and pushes things one way or the other. The outcome is a quiet, tentative tip-toe through gently tapped metal, nature hiss, and softly plucked single strings. Which, personally, is a path I dig treading. More heads are better than none.

A SNAKE IN THE GARDEN "Winter's Burn" (Grimeology Records)

Two longish tracks make up this C30 by northeast US noiser Matthew Mayer, and if anything they demonstrate the versatility of this project. "Frost of the Womb" is quite decent sparse ambient work with minimal nodes of dissonance periodically creeping into a slumbering synthesizer drone. "Water Caskets" is a polar opposite, a crunchy exploding mess in the tradition of your usual HN suspects, although the track displays a tendency to subside from total distortion into a single feedback tone which could have been used more sparingly. The only serious drawback on "Winter's Burn" is the noticeable lack of volume on the dubbing. Otherwise it's a good initiation into this guy's work and is enhanced by a solid packaging job with a color print on thick, high quality paper. Bonus points for one of the best label names I've heard recently.

www.grimeology.com