Reflections #2
Tilth, Horsegirl, Këkht Aräkh, Winifer Odd
I’ve been trying to write about this album for a month or more now. During one listen, I was reading an article about informal tours that detail the last living hours of three civil-rights workers before they were murdered by the KKK in Mississippi. Tilth’s Nathan McLaughlin and Cody Yantis scored my reading and I believed I would write a whole piece detailing my experience. I imagined the headline: “Tilth’s Rock Music and Tour Guides to a Tragedy: Tilth digs their hand deep into the soil, pulling up what may.” As the title Rock Music suggests, the deconstructed textures of rock are quilted together to revisit rock’s past and with it, the country’s. Rock Music captures an American soundscape with Rhodes pianos, acoustic and electric guitars, saxophones, and synthesizers droning on American blues and jazz. Electric guitar distortion becomes as natural as breath through a reed. All the elements of rock are here, save for percussion. However, the absence of drums isn’t noticed. It’s a respite. Truly post-rock. I’m sure you’re catching on, I love music that reflects a landscape, the beauty of nature captured through unnatural sounds. And I am pumped when an album doesn’t hide from the horror of that same nature. “Four Corners More” devolves into a haunt and “Drift Dirt” sorts your mortal perspective of the Earth’s stellar orbit. “Jimmie Dale Gilmore” is a heavy swamp-night performance for the biggest bullfrogs you've ever heard. “Counterweight” is a piano and guitar duet that scores the dance between gospel and country that built modern music; big church-worthy chords sound on the piano while the guitar picks a folk lick from memory. There’s a reverence for this deep history of cultural collaboration. “A Variegated Rite” demonstrates this with banjo and fiddle noise. When it feels as if America’s many threads are fraying apart, it’s nice to sit on the porch a moment longer before she goes.
Horsegirl is a band from Chicago who, after a few self-released singles, have found their debut released on Matador with some well deserved attention. The trio includes Penelope Lowenstein, Nora Cheng, and Gigi Reece. This feels like a good soundtrack for the summer. Plenty of catchy hooks surrounded in enough oily goo to keep the bubblegum out of your hair. The opening track “Anti-glory” has that mid-2010’s house party, post-punk dance sound that misled me on my first listen. I expected the rest of the album to follow suit but it quickly touched down at a more 90’s alt/shoegaze pop much like the Breeders, Yo La Tengo, Pixies, etc. My suspicions were confirmed when I learned the album was recorded at Electrical Audio with John Agnello who has worked with the Breeders and Dinosaur Jr. “Dirtbag Transformation (Still Dirty)” reminds me of something off Swearin’s self-titled album (one of my favorites and don’t be surprised if you see it in a future post); the mid-tempo and lethargic guitar lick melody in the verse propels through summer heat. Ok, so it’s very familiar indie rock but I argue that it still offers surprising choices and excellent performances. “The Fall of Horsegirl” is a freakout jam, “Electrolocation 2” is a feedback delay exploration and one of the three instrumentals on the record. Though, my favorite tracks are probably the ones that dial back the noise and let the pop vocals shine. “World of Pots and Pans” and “Billy” both give me that I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One fix I am constantly looking to shoegaze for. Yes it’s reminiscent but I don’t think it’s insufferably derivative. Besides, the band feels comfortable in its lineage. These are Versions of Modern Performance after all. I’ll be keeping an eye out for even further evolved versions of Horsegirl.
Like so many in the year since this album’s release I’m sure, I was drawn into Black Metal Promotion’s YouTube upload by this incredible album art. Këkht Aräkh’s fresh take on black metal cover design softens the aesthetics and forms light in the shadows and this direction is reflected in the music. Depressive raw black metal, Pale Swordsman bridges a modern sound and the Norwegian second wave. The Darkthrone influence is clear here. Vampiric lyrical themes, minimal mid-tempo sections, and constant blast beats in a tape deck atmosphere all harken back to Transylvanian Hunger. However, with its four instrumental lullabies and the finale “Swordsman,” Crying Orc is capable of reaching somber depths bypassed by Darkthrone. Këkht Aräkh doesn’t limit himself to kvlt precedents. When was the last time you heard a piano ballad on a black metal album? “Nocturne” could score the most depressing Charlie Kaufman movie. Where Darkthrone’s vampires are evil and revel in their lust for blood, the pale swordsman begs for an end, remembers a long dead lover, and dreams up a new life. It’s one of those records that makes you want to write “this is the black metal record for people who don’t like black metal.” There’s just enough tenderness to welcome the casual listener without compromise and without relenting. Black metal can be a tough cookie to crack with an even tougher recipe to alter, but this feels fresh and good. I mean c’mon: “wandering in the night pale swordsman, UGH!” (Does it get more metal than that?)
Taking their name from a Lal and Mike Waterson song, Winifer Odd are true to form slowcorers, sistering with the best of Codeine or Seam. Primary member Darius Lerup wrote a beautiful contribution to the slow and sad tradition, an album that intertwines simple and loose melodies to crochet songs together. Featuring Conor McKeown on guitar and produced by the band’s drummer, Adrien Tibi, the record’s point of view is clear: soft and clean with a full and polished production. They’ve reached a self-assurance that similar bands will forgo, insisting to record lo-fi for the “sound,” which is a convenient way to escape presenting so entirely. A sin I’ve committed myself. Allow me to project a little here when I say Winifer Odd stands on a bright stage while the rest of us bury our vocals behind tape warble in fear of being taken seriously, or, God forbid, seen as actually trying. I love the sound of lo-fi music, but it certainly has the benefit of providing shield from critique, a “see, I don’t even care what it sounds like so neither should you,” glaze. Everything Descending instead goes naked and bare. It shares ties with Patrick Walker’s doom confessional as much as it does Bedhead or Low. “Anxious Angel,” “Shiner,” and “Everything Descending” kick on the distortion but don’t feel out of step with the quiet tip-toeing quality of “Cold Blue Touch” and “Glowing Nowhere.” And it’s the chords ringing out in “Paper and Sand” for me. Slowcore is often all about texture, so here’s what the song touches: soft towels, course sands, and gentle laps of water. Winifer Odd raised the bar for the slowcore revival and might inspire me to evaluate my own confessions with a new-found openness.