TranscendNoise

Labour by Clawing Finney´s poems exist as the sound of his voice. Forming the band Clawing with Austin Gaines and Jeff McLeod the artist released the album Spectral Estate (Dullest Records) in early March and shortly thereafter a very different album,  Gospel with the composer Sivash Amini on Opal Tapes. Now Clawing have blessed us with yet another release, the 30-minute epic Labour tackling the pandemic of addiction in a personal and yet surrealist way. Moving to dark music aficionado label Grey Matter Productions for this and fittingly releasing on Halloween, Clawing as a band also sees the addition of new members T. Platt, J. James and K. Miller to the mix.  In between the terrifying soundscapes of his fellow artists Finney´s voice surfaces like speech beyond language. In Spectral Estate Finney, blurs the lines between reality and dream, visions and fears constitute a perception impregnated by sexual abuse and depression. On Gospel, these terrors step into the...

Continuing their run of EPs and widening their scope, Raime´s return with "We Can´t Be That Far From The Beginning" isn´t just another turn in this progression, but sees the UK duo starting their own label RR and opening up anticipation for more to come and maybe even other artists to rise. While Am I Using Content or Is Content Using   Me? saw Raime opening their style up for the unimaginable flood of information, snippets, and samples in an unusually reggeaton colored palette, We Can´t Be That Far builds on these experiences while folding back on elements of their studio albums. From the start "In Media Res" is the seamless connection to Am I Using Content : The chromatic stutter winds up before being underlined with a bouncy synth line. However, a departure is imminent after only a minute. The vocal sample "I am tired" peaks in repetition and a call and response like scheme, underlined by strings and a complete dissolution of any repetition, bea...

In their previous album , Ones And Sixes Low laid much of the groundwork for Double Negative . Still, this records sounds fresh and like an unexpected move. Here the band abandons many tropes and their known modus operandi for a noise-heavy aural experience. A set of songs that shed simplistic forms and structures to build a haunting piece of music that points towards the capabilities of modern dream pop and rock that most bands will never fully embraces or consider. Writing the first draft for this review, I fell into the rabbit hole of analysis (read it below). Trying to actually tell something meaningful about the album ended up in a track by track description of the twists and turns Double Negative takes and the aural changes the whole experience entails. Rereading my own words, it felt like a telling failure in capturing the onslaught of sound. Listing in on Low´s previous work, Double Negative feels like a secret accusation and the breaking point of comprehensib...

Clawing – Spectral Estate As listeners, we turn to music for a vast range of reasons. For one, we try to integrate and emulate our experiences and surroundings in sound, try to find an emotional connection with sounds in search of a different or enhanced reality. Clawing offer something unique here: Insight into very real horrors of this world.  Clawing is a band consisting of Austin Gaines (Calques), multi-instrumentalist Jeff McLeod and poet Matt Finney, a trio able to evoke the darkest and most disturbing feelings and sceneries imaginable. Finney´s words gently lull you into the scene, a faux awakening and encounter with a surreal father figure that gives way to murky soundscapes. A scorched mess gauging your sense of direction. Cyclical. in an almost prayer like atmosphere, Gaines, and McLeod lead you deeper into a percussive attack of noise and guitar drones copulating. Everything crashes, Finney re-emerges buried and the dream-state becomes a hollow vessel of black. ...

Violet Cold – Desperate Dreams  Seeing the title "Desperate Dreams" and the tag "black metal", most minds will be set to the most normative standard of what black metal is supposed to be: A dark convulsion of feelings. Anger, frustration, ill-intent and whatever is considered to be negative. But, there is another side to this musical landscape that, for me, seems to come to fruition in newer bands and the iterations and mingling of different musical elements. Some annotate this kind with the denominator of "hipster", which in more considered and less visually inclined terms still is better said in the prefix of "post-" metal. Deafheaven might be one of the first and biggest name to fall under this newish category and rightfully so. They were the first band who’s piercing shrieking I found fitting and listenable by means of emotional depth and affective appeal.  In Violet Cold we find, what often times can be found in this field of music,...

Millie & Andrea - Drop The Vowels Since Luxury Problems and catching on to the Modern Love imprint, every release is something to look forward to and be excited about. Calling them a staple as of yet might not be right considering their quantity of releases, but when it comes to quality and pushing the boundary a bit further, Modern Love deserves to rank among the gods.  Stotts name had me sold about two seconds in after the releases got announced and after hearing some of Demdike Stare´s stuff, I knew this release would be frantic and strange in the best way possible. On top of that, Drop The Vowels was a huge first in terms of the listening experience too. As someone who started collecting Vinyl for value of having some great packages, extras and huge artwork, I only decided to really actually play my collection later on. Still it had never occurred that the physical copy was what I listened to first. Normally there is the pre-download of the digital version...