Back up and running for now. Five solo releases, another one from Water Damage, and one well-received gory metal opus. Step inside.
Chris Brokaw, Ghost Ship (12XU)
It seems Chris Brokaw's never too far from a new recording being released, but I've been anxiously awaiting the proper follow-up to 2020's incredible Puritan. Those looking for Brokaw to redeliver "The Heart of Human Trafficking" will momentarily be a bit sour at the pensive, foggy mood of Ghost Ship, though the lack of drums and, really, momentum open up a more cavernous, affecting space. The jagged sawing of "Anything Anymore" is about as roused as this record gets, opening with "Thank god I'm not in jail/thank god I'm not on fentanyl," a painfully American sigh of relief. For the rest of the album, Ghost Ship retreats into itself, conjuring Eluvium on "Vampire of Rathmines" or Loren Connors on the title track, though the inventive, patient guitar work is unmistakably that of Brokaw. The lyrics are weary but matter-of-fact, a hard look at behaviors or habits easier to ignore, here laid out for inspection, unadorned. Closer "Away From Me" is the best track here, and the most devastating; the opening guitar line becomes amplified and then gradually splits into a thousand shards, the record ending in the same fog pictured on the cover. In a sub-underground seemingly saturated with solo guitarists, Chris Brokaw is still unmistakable, a giant. Not too often I want to wander down a dreary path like Ghost Ship's cleared, but it's really gotten under my skin the past few weeks. Highly recommended - and grab a copy of Puritan while you're poking around the 12XU mart.
I don't think there are many artists who capture the feeling of late capitalism, technology-addled or -damaged lifestyles, and fringe society as well as Adam Keith, whether through his excellent Baited Area magazine or his music as Cube. These things are all thoughtfully explored, without judgement, an active interest in how people behave, make art, and generally survive or adapt in an environment actively working against them. As Cube, Keith lives in a genre-agnostic space that contains post-punk, noise, and drum and bass/jungle. On Lucky Numbers & True Weight, he leans harder than ever into the latter: "New Stare" verges on footwork, the industrial pounding of "Rotoprone" sounds ripped from a L.I.E.S. 12", and "Skin Diver" is exhilaratingly furious d'n'b. The best parts of any Cube record are still the throbbing tracks with deadpan vocals on top, the lyrics usually consisting of phrases that have infiltrated everyday life ("Terms of Service") removed from context and re-shaped by the ominous delivery. New here are experiments with autotune and the closest-ever Cube pop track, "Reverse Cowboy," the bouncing, minimal beat and alien chorus undercut by an ominously shimmering synth in the background. The genre-hopping and restlessness places Lucky Numbers & True Weight in the same league as J.R.C.G.'s Grim Iconic record from last year, fine company if you ask me; but the picture Cube paints is much more dystopian and claustrophobic. Another banger from Cube, even if the mirror held up reflects less and less favorably each passing day.
Darksmith, Loose Ends (Philatélie)
A new recording from Tom Darksmith, this time on LP courtesy of Philatélie. Loose Ends is a bit of a self-deprecating title, like most Darksmith releases I guess, and at first blush it appears to be a slight entry in their overall discography. "Part Two" especially felt amorphous and slippery, though after many listens it feels like a refined, focused vision, something I'm sure Tom'd hate to hear after reading his interview in Rocker. It seems like the whirring, jammed machinery of past releases has been largely cleared out, making space for faint voices and the endless grating hum of production they fuel; a close inspection of some piece of machinery that might take your hand off if you get too close. "Part One" is among the most effective Darksmith tracks I've heard, grinding and humming and blaring its way to extinction, and the distant echo of human activity and refrigerator hum of "Part Two" acts as the foil on the flip. Immersion is the gateway.
Kilynn Lunsford, Promiscuous Genes (Feel It)
It's been some two and a half years since Kilynn Lunsford's Custodians of Human Succession, my favorite album of that year, and it seems like the time's been well spent developing their idiosyncratic vision. Lunsford's work with Little Claw and Taiwan Housing Project still informs to a degree, but it's getting harder to spot now amidst the throbbing, rubbery bass, pitch-shifted vocals and increasingly dub-and funk-inspired compositions. The best of the bunch, like "Nice Quiet Horror Show," the bass-guided cover of the Beach Boys' "Disney Girls," the lone rave-up "Gateway to Hell," and the noise-addled acoustic strums of "Gagged World," could, absent Lunsford's very confrontational lyrics, find a whole lot of success in a right and just world. For good measure, the cover of Syd Barrett's "Maisie" here knocks almost like a vintage Memphis production, knife sharpening sounds included, Lunsford able to transpose effortlessly atop almost any backing music.
With somewhat mixed results, Lunsford lets loose apocryphal lyrics and broken-then-mended melodies in several spots, pushing the listener away while simultaneously pulling them closer. The indisputably goofy intro to "Lillibilly," arriving after an inspired deconstruction of the Beatles' "You Never Give Me Your Money," features Lunsford's vocals bouncing off the walls atop jaunty barroom piano, repeating "Predatory market crash" like a schoolyard taunt. The sinewy title track features exaggerated monster bellowing and a stiff, brittle rhythm section, lyrics promising your child a job at the meat processing plant "if you run into a rut." "Some Mothers Do" is a lyrical maze delivered atop a broken programmed keyboard, consisting of riddles like "Not a scoundrel, a liberty-taker, but a proper gentleman" and "Modern-day fairy tales, sex films, Roger Ailes." The more I listen, the more confusing it all becomes, but it's sure that Lunsford has a vicious, tempered vision, one that is becoming more warped by and resilient to the ongoing, painfully slow societal collapse. Promiscuous Genes can't stop that, but there are answers in the forceful drive to create and make something, lest you really lose your head, Rat Bag.
The light switched on for hordes of the sub-underground this year: after 10 or so years of aural punishment, Pissgrave was warmly received upon the release of this third album, Malignant Worthlessness. Even Pitchfork had their say, which is all a bit strange for a band that seems to hold everything and everyone in contempt, grinding out a vicious brand of utterly relentless death metal with near-mechanical abrasive vocals, and adorning their records with close-up photos of decaying or destroyed human bodies. Any positive recognition's more than well-deserved: each Pissgrave album's been better than the last (but they're all individually great), and their blinders-on approach to metal, utterly unaware of trends, or seemingly other genres, remains unwilling to make a single concession to the listener. There are crunchy, circular headbang riffs at points (see: two minutes into "Heaping Pile of Electrified Gore" or most of "Interment Orgy"), but for the most part, the shot blast that begins "In Heretic Blood Christened" is more representative of the duration. The drumming is up to the task, grinding out blastbeats or pounding out slow tempos with fury, each song packed with dizzying, inventive riffs shifting seamlessly. It's brittle and abrasive, but not smothering; rather, the album feels textured, almost nuanced, the riffs wound into themselves enough to form a gnarled, thorny nest. The overall effect is still very much physical and primitive, of course, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a more punishing collection of songs this year. Pissgrave now, Pissgrave forever.
Private Collector, s/t CS (self-released)
Two continuous 30-minute sides of tape loop slop, electrical vomit and sandpaper scrape from West Virginia. At a certain point, these sort of noise-based experimental projects start to blend together, but where James Douglas' Private Collector stands out is how they continuously layer and peel back these sounds; it feels like you're in a writhing pit of insects, sounds moving in and being replaced, often one or two minutes after introduction. There's a persistent train whistle sort of noise on "Bankers Box" that can get on my nerves, and a minutes-long broken ice cream truck jingle or siren rears its head on "Storage Unit," but otherwise sounds slip out of earshot and disappear, quickly replaced by throbbing, rustling, swishing, as if they're working five or six tape loops at once. There's no doubt Private Collector will get under your skin and garner more than a few complaints from clean-hearers within its sphere, but there's something both novel and addictive about this approach to noise. Flows well, rarely drags, and feels academic without a starched collar or sport jacket: a dry, dry humor can be evinced from the song titles and some of the sounds within. A strong debut, exhausting in the right ways; collapse into Private Collector for a spell.
Water Damage, Instruments (12XU)
One of the small pleasures of the past few years 'round here has been gettin' a little high and letting the needle drop on a Water Damage LP. I'm hardly the first to find something powerful in planting a bass line, a drum line, and listening to all the other guitars, electronics, violins, and whatever else is in the room grow in volume like weeds around the rhythm section. Instruments is now the third record I own by the ever-growing, ever-changing ensemble, and while the formula still works, the back half of this record might've uncovered my limit. The opener "Reel 28" features a loose bass line ripped right outta Bitches Brew and the group rides that for the duration; it's great. A 12" featuring "Reel 28" on one side and "Reel E" on the other would be unbeatable. But that's not what we get: the album proceeds with "Reel 25," a track that promises action but continues to lean into it's punishing, swelling "dun-dun" beat. If I hadn't seen them pound "Reel 25" into the ground for nearly an hour at Big Ears this year, I'm not sure I'd be a fan; the wave refuses to crash after a 20-minute crescendo, and the further I get from that live memory, the less I want to hear it. "Reel 32" is almost hesitant, sounding like the band's estimate of a Takehisa Kosugi ensemble, volume traded for detail, openings made for improvisation. The subtle textures and impressive restraint on the track are noted, but it struggles for traction over 17 minutes. There's a cover of Pärson Sound's "India (Slight Return)" at the finish that sounds fine, but never really achieves liftoff. Maybe I'm just burned out from nearly an hour of "Reels" preceding it, but it's failed to connect thus far. Instruments is a more than fine record, and you should absolutely go see Water Damage if you ever have the opportunity, but between the live archive and the once-a-year full lengths, saturation just might have been reached.
Agalloch - The Serpent & The Sphere (Profound Lore, 2014)
Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal, Post-Metal, Dark Folk
Artwork: Markus Wolff & John Haughm
Bandcamp
Locrian — New Catastrophism/Ghost Frontiers (Profound Lore)
Photo by Elena Volkova
Does it matter if Locrian is a metal band or not? Every genre down to the most minute subdivision has its grognards passionate about what’s in or excluded (and often, in making value judgments that arise thereof), but aside from them it’s unlikely many of us listen to music and then look up the precise stylistic delineation before deciding if we fuck with it. So, if the question is worth asking it’s not for gatekeeping purposes, but for what trying to fit the now-geographically dispersed Chicago trio into or out of the metal box tells us about their music and the way we hear it. And the appearance of New Catastrosphism, their first record in seven years, and its accompanying EP Ghost Frontiers, is an especially good time to ask it. Both because of that gap and because these two releases may be Locrian’s most grippingly abstract yet.
Of course, listening to New Catastrophism/Ghost Frontiers is also a good reminder that something can be abstract and powerfully visceral at the same time. As the opening dronescape of “Mortichnia” grumbles to life (especially on decent headphones), there’s a very active sense of presence, and a foreboding one. Locrian have long made the end of the world their subject; after several strong efforts as the duo of André Foisy and Terence Hannum, 2010’s J.G. Ballard homage The Crystal World saw Steven Hess complete the trio and resulted in the first of several works that feel less like art “about” the end than attempts to evoke the actual sound of it. 2022 has certainly been a year that makes one’s thoughts turn towards the apocalyptic, and after Locrian’s last records were the excellent albeit slightly more conventionally song-shaped efforts Return to Annihilation and Infinite Dissolution, the restless, hostile, primal noise on New Catastrophism’s four tracks is even more bracing.
If the first 13 or so minutes of the album might have one reaching for more esoteric or novel descriptors (power ambient? blackened noise?), when Hess’s drums and Hannum’s blasted howl kick in partway through “The Glare Is Everywhere and Nowhere Our Shadow,” it’s pretty hard to avoid the m-word even though the sonic and emotional character of the track has shifted only slightly. Locrian aren’t the first to make a metal record with few if any riffs, here with some of the most notable guitar being a deceptively clean repeated figure pinging through the end of “Incomplete Map of Voids” and an acoustic that makes the closing “Cenotaph to the Final Glacier” darkly pastoral before it succumbs to first sawtooth-edged fuzz and then a gradual flurry of digitized percussion. It’s the kind of thing that makes hard and fast rules for genre beyond “I know it when I hear it” feel vaguely silly. Ultimately what category you stick Locrian in doesn’t make their work better or worse (and certainly the band doesn’t seem that fussed), but if anything with the kind of one-way-tension-ratchet climax that “The Glare…” boasts doesn’t fit into the category of “metal,” our definitions may be too rigid.
The 30-minute Ghost Frontiers EP included as a download with the vinyl release of New Catastrophism pushes the question even further. Two massive slabs of cycling, even more totalizing drone that can feel endless while the listener is in the midst of it, they’re packing even fewer typical genre referents than the album. And yet with a kind of negative grandiosity, by virtue of perhaps showing the aftermath of the breakdown New Catastrophism so stunningly depicts, the two tracks here might be even more harrowing. Whatever you want to call what Locrian does, both of these releases demonstrate aptly how well suited they are to the feeling of our current days, and how good it is to have them back.
