Hypomania - untitledCassette, Enfermo Distro, 2020. Limited to 20 copies.
This tape was one of the first releases by Portuguese Hypomania, a noise project of Enfermo Distro's label head. It offers 24 minutes of rough wall noise dubbed loudly on both sides of a C50 cassette (at least on my copy, I'm not sure if all copies used similar tapes). There's a big middle finger on the front cover and a photo of a grimy toilet on the inner flap, so you know this isn't trying to be anything more than what it is. I see nothing wrong with that though, especially since this is a tape by a starting project. That said, it's a pretty enjoyable dose of rough and rugged wall noise, and the tape's sound is a good mixture of crisp crackling and rugged dirt.
Bandcamp:
https://enfermodistro.bandcamp.com/album/hypomaniaHypomania / Fuhrer Duhrer - Seduced By Their StudsCassette, Enfermo Distro, 2021. Limited to 30 copies.
This split comes with a crude and simple, but also pretty neat fetish photo collage on the cover. That's pretty much all the visuals you get too as there are no infos on the cover besides mentioning the label and project names, not even track titles although the tracks are titled on the label's bandcamp page. Well, this works fine without any of that too, so no worries. This one's a recycled tape that's dubbed LOUD, all in red.
The first Hypomania track is fairly standard wall-ish rough noise with some spoken samples pushing through. The overall sound is pleasingly rugged and dirty, and the track works quite nicely especially in the moments when the samples break it further. It's a shame the track tones down into more formless gloomy murk by its end. The latter track is more of a hoarse mid-frequency flow than a constant low-end rumble, and I found it less interesting of the two. This preference might've been partly effected by the lessening sound pressure between the tracks: the opener hits you hard, whereas the latter one does not.
After Hypomania has gone with two tracks in 13 minutes, in comes the also Portuguese Fuhrer Duhrer with the same numbers. Their side starts very interestingly, with some "submerged" droning ambience that's coupled with a fairly narrow but tastily crude stream of rugged noise harshness. The track has a great atmosphere, sounding like something subdued is on the verge of bursting out. It evolves very little, but stays interesting for its six-minute length. Instead of something subdued, the follow-up track's fairly minimalistic rough screeches and crackles are backed by some semi-abstract (possibly vocal) sounds that carry a heavy reverberation of a wide echoing space. It makes for a nice counterpoint to the previous track, like being freed (or longing to be freed) from the thematic BDSM shackles, but soundwise I didn't find it as interesting. Similarly to Hypomania, both tracks have their merits, but the first track on the side makes the greater impact.
Bandcamp:
https://enfermodistro.bandcamp.com/album/seduced-by-their-studsHypomania - In Longer And Longer Circles Swinging Towards The Depths Of Our Own BeingCassette, Enfermo Distro, 2021. Limited to 30 copies.
About 8 minutes of noise dubbed loud on a recycled tape, with suitably crude but stylish collage art by Musrattus who also made the cover art for Hypomania / Fuhrer Duhrer split. There's very little infos here either (including no visual artist credit which I picked up from the label's bandcamp page), and I'm not actually sure about the tape's title either but at least something along those lines is written on the cover. This is some fairly slow-moving harsh noise with a murky and desolate feel, with occasional pedal squeaks and stubbornly present electric crackling giving the rumbling pedal noise harshness some extra textural details. So, no wall noise this time. The harsh flow is backed by industrially echoing room sounds and speaking, I think. It creates a backdrop of being left alone in a horror movie-vibed mental institution (I'm letting the cover art quide me here) and as such works fine together with the main meal of rugged distortion, even if by itself it wouldn't be that interesting to listen to. The very loud dubbing works wonders for this sound too. A short, sampler-like tape, but a good one.
Bandcamp:
https://enfermodistro.bandcamp.com/album/in-longer-and-longer-circles-swinging-towards-the-depths-of-our-own-being-real-hard
