Welcome back again. There are many many awesome projects that have dropped this year, so I'm going to be trying to work through reviewing some of my favorites. Here's another one. If you have anything you'd like to send me, send to [ fosterhildingmusic@gmail.com ] or DM me on Instagram.
 |
| photos courtesy of Alex Kent. |
Most notable for his work in slowcore x everything band, Sprain (now Shearling), and acoustic solo project, Big Brown Cow, Alex Kent is an undeniable, unstoppable force in contemporary music. He is multifaceted in his ever-changing approach and embraces the darkness of sound using endless methods. His surprise, practically brand new solo endeavor under his full name, Alexander Gregory Kent, is no exception to this. Alexander, I am not a Saltlick comes fresh off of his debut under the same name, Teaches Dust to Reason and exists much within the same ethos of his first album, built on wisps of pads, textures, and jabs of darkness completely indifferent to comfort. It's lush, atmospheric, and tense.
Pricks in the Snow begins in a jolting, industrial mood as distorted pads clip from one ear to the next, giving way to a psychotic collage of inhuman sounds, yet the bells that slowly bubble into existence leave listeners with some sense of tranquility--like floating out from the storm into clear weather, unencumbered by loss and pronounced only in wonder in our journey forward. This shift reshapes the remainder of the song into an attempt to understand the sublime. We then ache onwards against light synths and clouds of uncertainty, and our journey into endless sky has begun. The washes of chirping banjo that lead the track into oblivion are beautiful, simple, and somber--the only possible ending.
Saltlick is deceiving as an "ambient" track as layers of pad mingle with melodic obscurity, phasing in and out of dissonance like a paranoid nightwalker. This doesn't last long (comparatively, of course), though, and we are launched into nightmare soundtracks from a scraping, industrial wasteland. Alex is a master at building tension on scales longer than most are aware possible in music--forever-drags without mercy or conscious in an attempt at understanding that greater something.
Excerpt from Rejected Shearling Song + ZZ TOP PRICK is more bold, breaking through the clouded ambience with shifting machine noises and alien sound effects flying around listeners. Shearling (and Sprain)'s own Sylvie enters in Sylvie fashion embracing dissonance and sounds like fear, alone. As these monuments of tension crumble away, though, we are left with ghostly images of sound struggling to hang on still to the living, fading in and out and distorting the bolder they become. The acoustic strumming that comes on slow like light protects us from these poltergeists and from danger itself. It is, very clearly, the end of the journey--fast, growing in excitement, and unsure. Of course, it leads back only unto itself in schizophrenic machine ramblings.
There is nothing but anticipation in my heart for the future of Alex's never-ending projects, Shearling itself highest on the list. Bold in experimentation and unwilling to forgive, the sky is not only the limit, but the goal. Thanks for reading, everyone, and keep doing the thing and going to the things.
8.5/10
Stream Alexander, I am not a Saltlick.
-Foster
Comments
Post a Comment