HNW

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D345
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HNW

Post by D345 »

Opinions? Favorites? Why you don't like HNW? Should there be no dynamics, no change, no development, no ideas?

And RIP Emily Aideen
But he was always more concerned with making his guitar sound like a dying horse, more than anything else.

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Re: HNW

Post by drift »

D345 wrote: Sun Jun 12, 2022 12:26 pm RIP Emily Aideen
totally. a very niche talent, but I respect her work.

besides I'm guessing a now defunct novelty etc., I have a fondness for it due to how easy it is to enjoy. once you're over the first few seconds there's no dots to connect and nothing to miss. I don't think that's the case in any other artistic endeavour I can think of. the fist line of a sonnet or symphony, the eyes of a self portrait. I guess you also have track length. maybe the ideal hnw recording doesn't end.
Last edited by drift on Sun Jun 12, 2022 1:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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D345
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Re: HNW

Post by D345 »

static HNW is more silent than silence. True headcleaner at best
But he was always more concerned with making his guitar sound like a dying horse, more than anything else.

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Re: HNW

Post by drift »

I've never read a John Cage study. have a couple of his books, and so on. maybe the fact hnw isn't literally silence makes it the more metaphorical response to all that.

obviously, not everyone who makes hnw is a genius, etc., but it's also kinda punk. so who cares.
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Re: HNW

Post by 33033 »

HNW with dynamics is great imo, but if it has dynamics, is it then HNW? Is it then just HN? If it sounds intense and isn't phoned in (you can tell) I dig it.
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Re: HNW

Post by D345 »

But he was always more concerned with making his guitar sound like a dying horse, more than anything else.

https://ruputapes.wordpress.com/
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Re: HNW

Post by drift »

D345 wrote: Sun Jun 12, 2022 2:24 pm I want more praise for this
https://awwfn.bandcamp.com/album/regel-4-hnw
mattin is always mattin, which I kinda hate and love in equal parts. i dig pink noise, and think object of thought is great. proletarian of noise makes me want to give up on everything. none of those are hnw.

always picking a fight with someone, but maybe lacks self awareness.
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Re: HNW

Post by D345 »

https://monolithictorment.bandcamp.com/ ... aine-vigil
this at least deserves a CD edition. I'm a materialist
But he was always more concerned with making his guitar sound like a dying horse, more than anything else.

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Re: HNW

Post by SS1535 »

Image
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Re: HNW

Post by SS1535 »

I like the idea of Harsh Noise Wall very much, though I tend to not listen to it too often. Whereas most music tends to be considered temporally, I prefer to think about HNW in terms of space--as a metaphorically physical wall. It can be used to structure the artist, the sound, and thematic content in ways that I find fascinating.
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Re: HNW

Post by Petishkeh »

Just got around to watching the WCN Podcast interview with Romain (Vomir) yesterday.

Seems like a really cool guy and I definitely lol’ed a few times, especially when he was talking about people who reacted to HNW by saying “...it’s all the same...!” His response to those individuals was something like “well, what did you expect??? I told you it would be.” Hah. (whilst also stating that it was fine for people to think whatever they’d like)

Regarding HNW listening, I will admit I’m not the most versed and I tend toward the more well-known artists, like Vomir, The Rita, Richard Ramirez’s projects, Dead Body Collection, Griz+zlor, Placenta Lyposuction, Die Reitenden Leichen and probably a few that I have momentarily forgotten.

I used to pay more attention to HNW in the early ‘10s, but I’m going to heed the Bandcamp mentions here and check those artists out.
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Re: HNW

Post by shrouded.in.antiquity »

I love HNW, it has fascinated me since I discovered it. I didn't have a lot of context for it when I was first introduced and that might have been what really drew me in. It tells you exactly what you're going to hear when you press play on almost any track, and yet there is a lot of room for nuance and subtle variation. I spent a lot of time tracking down what I could online and on Soulseek and made extensive use of The Harsh Noise Wall Graveyard blogspot trying to put the pieces together.

I think one of the biggest shortcomings of the HNW sub-genre is that many artists think that their material has to be one single unflinching track of static noise for it to be considered HNW. There have always been artists making HNW tracks that have quick cuts between textures, as well as slow textural development throughout a track and I wish more people would stop trying to rip off Vomir's sound and try to contribute something else to the discussion. Unfortunately every time this does happen the conversation is always about "well is this or isn't this HNW?" which detracts from the material at hand. HNW definitely suffers from micro-genre-ism if you will, where the definition often outsizes the material. I don't think this is particularly helpful at this point and it would be nice if people could see beyond it.
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Re: HNW

Post by D345 »

htp_systems wrote: Mon Jun 13, 2022 11:18 am I think one of the biggest shortcomings of the HNW sub-genre is that many artists think that their material has to be one single unflinching track of static noise for it to be considered HNW. There have always been artists making HNW tracks that have quick cuts between textures, as well as slow textural development throughout a track and I wish more people would stop trying to rip off Vomir's sound and try to contribute something else to the discussion. Unfortunately every time this does happen the conversation is always about "well is this or isn't this HNW?" which detracts from the material at hand. HNW definitely suffers from micro-genre-ism if you will, where the definition often outsizes the material. I don't think this is particularly helpful at this point and it would be nice if people could see beyond it.
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Re: HNW

Post by W.K. »

A little too incestuous for my liking, but some sounds are nice.
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Re: HNW

Post by drift »

W.K. wrote: Mon Jun 13, 2022 3:09 pm A little too incestuous for my liking, but some sounds are nice.
interesting idea... the unconscious has no time.
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Re: HNW

Post by Haare »

D345 wrote: Sun Jun 12, 2022 12:26 pm Why you don't like HNW?
Great opening line! 😃
I love some hnw every now & then. Faves off the top of my head: Vomir, Female Harakiri, Akuochi-onna, Opaque, Milky clouds, some Richard Ramirez projects (esp. Werewolf Jerusalem).
Sven Kay's A wall of text zine was great, I'm still hoping there'll be a 2nd issue.
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Re: HNW

Post by opacaluce »

Unlikely any other kind of musical form, the marvel of HNW is that it switches the attention from the sound itself to the "sound" in your brain.
It does not require attention but for the initial moments, long enough to let the sound waves resonate with yourself.
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Re: HNW

Post by D345 »

Haare wrote: Thu Jun 16, 2022 11:40 pm
D345 wrote: Sun Jun 12, 2022 12:26 pm Why you don't like HNW?
Great opening line! 😃
Usually when I see discussion about HNW, there's always someone telling why they don't like HNW (boring, bandcamp only et cetera) so I thought it would be polite to give them something!
But he was always more concerned with making his guitar sound like a dying horse, more than anything else.

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Re: HNW

Post by holy ghost »

Haare wrote: Thu Jun 16, 2022 11:40 pm Sven Kay's A wall of text zine was great, I'm still hoping there'll be a 2nd issue.
Totally agree! Absolutely fantastic zine. I would love to see another issue. I really thought he did an excellent job on that one.

I love HNW - Vomir, The Rita (obviously only one facet of Sam’s work), Richard Ramirez and related, but I’m not so caught up in defining what’s “true” or what “isn’t” HWN (of course because this isn’t 2007). I remember “secret members only forums” and tons of online arguments but to me it’s just one facet of harsh noise just like the rest.
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Re: HNW

Post by shrouded.in.antiquity »

Haare wrote: Thu Jun 16, 2022 11:40 pm Sven Kay's A wall of text zine was great, I'm still hoping there'll be a 2nd issue.
I only heard about this zine after the fact, where was it made available? Any lingering copies of it somewhere? I'm still really disappointed to have missed out on it.
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Re: HNW

Post by Bubble-Congeries »

It's not often that I record HNW. I am not against a purely static, hands-off approach, but I like a hands-on approach normally for myself, making very gradual adjustments that aren't necessarily noticable. It's all very zen, but it also takes a lot of time and a surprising amount of focus. HNW in general makes me extremely groggy after so long, which is not to say it's boring, but more like a form of low-budget meditation coming from intense focus on a sound at the expense of any other stimuli. Cheap transcendance!
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Re: HNW

Post by drift »

I used to like how marginal/fringe it was. how you can just appear from nowhere, make a noise tape that blows me away, then disappear. these things end up getting canonised and exploited, same as anything, more than anything. maybe I exaggerate, but it used to be unusual for me to purchase Ha NW tape and not be at all impressed. that ended for me about 2012 (so a while ago then). the need to keep reviewing it didn't help.

edit maybe I just grew up / etc.. who cares.
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Re: HNW

Post by Bleak Existence »

into HNW since long time - think i will forever be - just spent too much $ & time on it - into crackle studies now too
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Re: HNW

Post by minimal.impact »

33033 wrote: Sun Jun 12, 2022 2:02 pm HNW with dynamics is great imo, but if it has dynamics, is it then HNW? Is it then just HN? If it sounds intense and isn't phoned in (you can tell) I dig it.
I've been thinking about this a bit more recently after burning myself out on the style some years back. Listening to a lot of this 'phoned in' stuff probably contributed a lot to this.

Definitely interested in listening to or at least producing/performing a bit more of this in the future, and what I've kind of gathered is that aside from texture, hybridizing the HNW form with some other kind of noise can . The Vomir & Yoshihiro Kikuchi collaboration on Geräuschmanufaktur comes to mind.
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Re: HNW

Post by shrouded.in.antiquity »

A depressing look through the Harsh Noise Wall tag on bandcamp has brought me back here. Even in OP's initial start to this thread there's this notion that if a recording is to be HNW then it must adopt Vomir's approach and whenever HNW is discussed there are such extremely rigid criteria for determining what IS and IS NOT harsh noise wall. If you were to listen to Vomir's catalog it is clear that the concept of "no development" may be true of individual tracks, but as far as Vomir's discography goes I don't think you can make the same argument. There are early releases that have blatant variations in texture, the split with Paranoid Time on Militant Walls comes to mind. I'm once again left wondering, why does HNW HAVE to be a set-it-and-then-forget-it-approach?

When I hear (usually American) HNW projects from the 2000s-early 2010s, there are often changes in sound throughout tracks, both subtle and not-so-subtle. These changes are also present in The Rita's work and the work of Richard Ramirez's various projects. On their recent collaborative effort "Adding and Subtracting Limbs," there are different sonic ideas explored, it isn't "one track=one sound." Is this not HNW because there are a few variations? Does that distinction add anything helpful to understanding the work? Must the idea of minimal static harsh noise be taken so literally that most of the new projects consist of: 1 unchanging track + theme for the cover + rinse & repeat?

There must still be a myriad of minimalist ideas to be explored within harsh noise. It is such a shame that the language surrounding minimal approaches has grown to define what those approaches have to be.
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