The Rita

The Rita is the harsh noise wall project of Canadian artist Sam McKinlay, active since the mid-1990s and one of the most rigorously theorised practitioners of the form. HNW — harsh noise wall — denotes a genre defined by static, unmodulated walls of sound that refuse the dynamics of composition, instead sustaining a maximal density in which all movement is simultaneously present and cancelled. McKinlay's practice is shaped by an engagement with extreme cinema, sexuality, and physicality, treating the noise wall as inseparable from the endurance it demands. His prolific output of dozens of releases pushed past the genre's conventions, even as others adopted the HNW template he helped create.