collage
I’ve got a backlog of cool music to write about and a little more free time than usual, so you can expect the WRG columns to arrive a little more frequently until I head back to school in September. Here are four good ones I’ve been spinning often.
Obelisk Ruins – Thought | Vision | Doubt
Few genres seem as tethered to their moment of emergence as trip hop is. Whether intentionally or not, even the latest releases can seem like hangovers from twenty years ago or faithful recreations of past sounds and aesthetics that at their best act as tributes or at their least fail to add anything new to the conversation. That said, it is very much possible to make music that evokes and communicates with the past in intriguing ways.
Thought | Vision | Doubt is a sample-heavy past-referential release. But it is unlike others that remember a promised future that never came, or naively recreate some idealized past that didn’t really exist. What makes it a compelling record is that it acts as a dialogue between the present creative practices of Obelisk Ruins and the Chicago music scene its members were a part of in the 90s. Freshly cut percussion and bass clarinet performances wander amongst fragments of Andrew Petzold-Eley’s collection of old demos and tapes released by his friends’ bands in the Windy City’s shoegaze/folk/experimental underground. As is often the case with the best releases in the trip hop and illbient canon, the record is cloaked in a eerie nocturnal atmosphere, evoking the nighttime side streets and alleys one might have to walk down to find the entrance to the dingy basement venues these bands played in.
Obelisk Ruins’ interweaving of original work and new transmutations of existing material becomes even more meta when considering the recording of the album. As per the album’s one-sheet “all of the album’s tracks were recorded on the original master tapes of long-disbanded Chicago avant-folk outfit Static Films. Wanting to interweave with those recordings but not erase them, Petzold-Eley meticulously recorded all of T-V-D’s material in the blank, unused tracks, in the empty space between the takes.” During this process, these tapes were inside the Tascam-MiniPortaStudio that Petzold-Eley continues to record with since buying it from a pawn shop in 1999. “The past inside the present,” then, now, and into the future.
Union of Uranus – Backhand
I was put onto this band after reading somewhere (I can’t remember where, sorry) that they were one of the main inspirational forces behind the legendary screamo band Orchid being formed. If you’re one of the reasons why people in one of the most pivotal 90s hardcore groups began making music together, you’ve got to be legit. Union of Uranus is legit. Throat-shredding vocals over gnarly crust punk guitars, what’s not to like? I was hooked from the first riff, and I think you’ll be too.
Adrienne – Summer’s Beginning
Adrienne is a band that I’ve wanted to like since their self-titled 2021 EP was put on my radar. For whatever reason, I had a hard time latching on that first release, which might have been more of a me problem rather than anything the band was doing. However this new Summer’s Beginning EP became one of my favourite metalcore releases of the year from the get-go. The distinct dark late-90s/early-00s-influenced aesthetics that initially pulled me in are met with dynamic song structures that build and release tension in ways that stir emotion as much as they beckon you to the pit. It is melodramatic in the best of ways; heavy, hard, and even beautiful at times. Amongst their fellow contemporaries modernizing the melodic and melancholic side of the metalcore blade crafted decades ago, Adrienne has struck gold here, and who knows what other delights the rest of their metaphorical summer might bring.
Also, I went back to the first EP and this time it clicked, so don’t let my initial indifference lead you to write it off.
Rabbit – BARDO
Rabbit is one of the most exciting groups in hardcore right now. After releasing two incredible EPs last year, they’re back with another heavy-hitting five-song joint. The things that made me first fall for this group remain present and impactful – those being beefy grime-covered riffs and a maniacal vocalist with unpredictable energy and belligerent mic presence. If I had it my way, these guys would be Pain of Truth big. They aren’t yet, but after them now having three killer releases under their belt, you’d have to be an ignorant fool and/or tasteless hack to keep sleeping on this band.