Fertanish

At a time when North America's noise scene is moving away from the harsher end of the sonic spectrum, Fertanish is an outlier. Bill Murphy (the apparent sole proprietor of both the Fertanish project and the Plus Noise imprint) aims to test the upper limit of human cochlear sensitivity and to unearth sinister rhythms via rapid-fire percussive blasts (as epitomized within album opener "Practitioner"). Murphy's mode of operating is to capture the sounds of nature, instrumentation and the recordings of others and to embed them within capsules of noise, like a child who traps insects in small jars to watch them slowly suffocate. In essence, he succeeds; his abrasive sonic textures eventually overtake and obliterate the more natural sounds that Murphy employs. What this means for the listener is a miasma of tones and samples that is, at times, an indecipherable mass; it's when Murphy leaves breathing room that his technique is most effective.