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Monday 8 June 2020

Ram Ventilation - Held in Mouth


Ram Ventilation – Held in Mouth – Digital Release – 2020


     1.    What an Idea For Wet Wires.
     2.    A Simple Phallange Engine.
     3.    Acousticon (Brought My Soul Out to Burn)
     4.    I Guess I’ll Bleed for It.


I’m unfamiliar with Ram Ventilation’s work, but the artist contacted me, and I was interested enough to look it up and review. Ram has been active since around 2018 and the project is linked to Coumadin and Cut Rings.

The opening track for Held in Mouth is What an Idea for Wet Wires, which is very cut up and fractured. Muffled distortion hums away, breaks in the sound interrupt. Once things flare up noises are in combat with other noises, screeches screech and distortion roars. These elements are randomly knocked off flow by cuts in sound so other methods materialise allowing for different passages of wall and noise which I like. The drops and raises in volume and volume play offs are impressive- I call this method Broken Wall.

Shorter tracks like A Simple Phallange Engine use subtle noise that again shifts, overlaps, and fights with itself to produce a mini quiet riot. Acousticon contrasts this with a noisy yet unique assault, the sounds are bouncy and choppy, this evolves into a chopped stream of noise that continually morphs into different dominant sounds. Drops and rises in volume are thrown at the line of sound, the continual shifts are dramatic and strengthen the work. The final track starts as a drop as if to continue from Acousticon, falters, cuts and erupts beautifully into a choppy wall that continues through bold changes in sound.

I’m impressed and glad my attention was bought to Ram Ventilation, there is a wealth of material on the Bandcamp as well as physical releases. Good work, Held in Mouth is impressive.

Nevis Kretini 2020.

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