Review Summary: goes hard
It’s easy to set off on the wrong foot trying to defend (‘legitimise’) noise. Mindful of that contextual baggage so awkwardly sidestepped, I admire The Howling Head’s pluck in refusing to use any instruments, synths or computers and restricting themselves entirely to amplified field recordings of air conditioner motors. Leaving questions about the virtuosity of such a method aside, this is a thing - I enjoyed it - and you might get something out of it too.
Nausea Swamp is straightforward in its intentions to disorientate and ‘attack’ the listener’s senses with ugly, squealing feedback and brutish noise. Associated with their chosen method, it seems The Howling Head take refuge in audacity and avoid compromising anything that could make the noise easier to stomach. For instance, there’s no smooth introductions to the two sides - a mild humming simply changes gear into a grinding wall of static. The release ends with even less sophistication i.e. they just stop. Apparently fade-outs do less damage to the ears but they don’t create that sudden feel of lightness when the dense wall of noise suddenly drops away. In this light, one can read the crude assembly as much a satisfying masochism as a decline to refine. The actual core of the sound bears that out too, being composed of trebly, ringing waves of noise which avoid slipping into the background like some low-end, rumbling releases are prone to.
Funnily enough, that all sounds pretty unpleasant but that’s really the point. To enjoy
Nausea Swamp, one needs to embrace the “pure sonic nihilism” and allow themselves to get caught up in the violence and tumult created by the howling and grinding textures. It goes hard as fuck (even if that’s all it does).
“WARNING: BECAUSE OF THE INTENSE NATURE OF THIS ALBUM, STOMACH DISTRESS MAY OCCUR. VOMIT BAG FOR USE WHEN LISTENING”
DO NOT RE-USE
