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[laserpinksteam]

Will you listen: ---__--___ - The Heart Pumps Kool​-​Aid (2021)

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[dustedmagazine]

---__--___ — The Heart Pumps Kool-Aid (Orange Milk / Mondoj)

The Heart Pumps Kool-Aid by ---__--___

The house on the cover of The Heart Pumps Kool-Aid is eerily reminiscent of the house this writer grew up in. The red-bricked bungalow, black shingles, white trim, and manicured lawn all bring back memories. Even the yard sale cast-offs conjure up scenes of suburban coming-of-age. Who hasn’t tried to sell a half-working space heater – a creature comfort for white suburbia – to their neighbors? Orange Milk co-founder Seth Graham and Mari Maurice (More Eaze) describe this record as expressing (among other things) the “entrapment of class,” and the painting of this house (created by Ellen Thomas from an idea hatched by Graham) displays exactly that.

Let’s also discuss the name of this project, this collection of dashes and underscores. Much can be said in the absence of words and letters here. An image of the pulse from an ECG machine, the symbolic moniker sprang from Graham’s subconscious, after he spent time alongside a loved one in the hospital. Both powerlessness and hope are reflected in that bouncing beam of light, particularly when it’s acting as an indicator of life itself. The name of the project and the album art, taken together, perfectly summarize the emotions that permeate the music that Graham and Maurice are offering: sadness, hope, love, longing, and existential unease.

The Heart Pumps Kool-Aid is an austere, slowly unfolding, and intimate record. At times, Maurice’s auto-tuned voice is the only element we hear. At others, she’s backed up by a single instrument. On “When You’re Hot Around the Narcs,” it’s a plucked cello, while a whisper of synth adorns “To Suppress the Voice.” The melancholy of these moments of quietude are frequently interrupted by angry bursts of sound. These sonic cluster bombs comprise either stabs of sample-heavy MIDI-concrète, passages of free improvisation crafted by commissioned musicians, or the mutant offspring of both approaches. This quiet-loud, or sad-angry, juxtaposition reflects how we as humans sometimes deal with emotions: reflecting inward before exploding in a rage-fuelled outburst. Hopefully (but not always), heavy emotions are followed by a sense of peaceful reconciliation.

Maurice’s voice isn’t the only one we hear on this record. Galen Tipton (appearing here as recovery girl) unleashes a cathartic death growl, enhancing the angrier passages of “Sadness, Infinite America … Shit” and “From the Valley.” Maurice trades faint whispers with Metoronari across “Julius Eastman / NY Metro Xylophone Player.” In one of the most affecting and hopeful passages, proxy.exe lays down a spoken word passage about how looking up from rock bottom seems daunting but the path upward is relatively short. All these other vocalists balance the heart-wrenching melancholy dripping from Maurice’s lips. The powerful emotions are balanced. There’s hopefulness and beauty nestled in among them, and we will survive, taking life one day at a time.

Bryon Hayes

[resistance765]

“To Suppress the Voice” - ---__--___   feat. Koeosaeme

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