“Sharp mind, eternal youth
I’ll be the first to never die
Nice thought, and I’m never gonna lose it”

If that all sounds dark then that’s because it is, but there is something both fascinating and thrilling in songs so direct and confrontational. Protomartyr’s music is imbued with a certain sense of exciting terror, a DeLillian dread that we know we should escape yet can’t help but stand beneath in open-mouthed awe. At least now you know you are not standing alone.

RIYL: Post-punk, Ought, ruminations on death

Favourite songs:

You can buy The Agent Intellect now from Hardly Art or the Protomartyr Bandcamp page.

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Doomking is a new synth-based project about “about being trapped by ones surroundings and spending too many late nights stuck in the internet”, which I’m sure is all too relevant for many of us. The sense of being stuck, both physically and mentally, runs through the record, clear thoughts and actions enveloped by a vague inertia and confusion. The general atmosphere is summed up by a quote on the Bandcamp page:

“I was out walking on the first hot night of the year. I was heading in the general direction of my old friends’ house, who I hadn’t seen in a while. My friend moved away last year. Realizing this I start to head back home. It’s 2 am, my friend would have been sleeping anyway.”

In a way similar to the Island Eyes record, A Mark of Something No Longer In Existence paints the familiar in a grand mythic way, late-night fever-thoughts turned fractured poetry. The desperation here is underlying yet abundantly clear, as if pushed backwards by the superficial stimulation of technology and the dull passing of time, long days turned short by the contemporary narcotic routine of information consumption.

Opener ‘Fernwood Detachment’ serves as a perfect example, the odd imagery and ambiguous visions swathed in expansive synths. The narrator is cast as alone, separated from the other character (a nameless ‘you’) by time and space. “I want to see the ocean,” he sings, lonely. “Without feeling like I don’t / Have anyone around”. ‘Ruin’ is similarly solitary, playing like the soundtrack to a walk through an abandoned town.

“Oh man, I don’t know
What to make of these dreams
I thought I saw
Something come to light
As though transfixed by these projections
And the path was open wide”

‘The Infinite Eye of Mount Douglas, I See My Love’ brings to mind Concatentating Fields by Trouble Books, its simmering synths feeling simple yet strangely organic, like some prehistoric sea. Dreamier still is ‘Home of the Ray Lake Dancers’, Soles’s vocals weaving in and out of finger-clicking percussion and synths which ebb and flow like a tide:

“Reading old emails
To get through the winter
Dragging my body
Behind you, behind you
I will stay inside
This empty room
I know it well
I saw a dancer
Waiting for summer
I saw a dancer
Waiting for summer”

‘Old House’ swells gently like a sunrise, like a city at night, before the vocals enter quiet yet prominent. “This, this is the house,” Soles sings, “where I plan to die”. The words are sung without fear, as if voiced from the clutches of an ever-deepening dormancy that numbs both mind and body. The end of the track sounds like a surrendering to this sensation, and album closer ‘Mark of Something’ is a 13-minute continuation, a float through a foreign landscape gently warped and obscured, the first footsteps into the final dream.

With its mixture of impassioned sentiments and general despondency shrouded in a haze of confusion, this is a release very much of and for our times: Where technological connectivity is driving, paradoxically, isolation and detachment, where words and videos from faraway places are piped into our silent twilit bedrooms like prescribed dreams.

You can buy A Mark of Something No Longer In Existence now from the Doomking Bandcamp page, including the novel and rather lovely picture frame/digital download format.

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“A dark love poem about self-discovery, realizing the things you love, close friends and adventure, limitations and failures, and bouts with depression”

Van Vliet is an interesting songwriter, not afraid to ply his trade across a diverse of genres. As well as the fragile folk songs as On The Water, he also writes doom metal with his band Ulthar and theatrical post-punk for the now defunct Da Comrade. You get the impression that Van Vliet is an artist confident in his abilities, drawing from the twin wells of creativity and experience.

Chicago artist Nnamdi Ogbonnaya has created a new video for their song ‘Born in Reverse, a strange stop-motion collage that sits perfectly with the lyrical themes of death, decay and, naturally, life (a similar theme to that of Young Jesus’ Grow / Decompose). The figure in the video, made up of a mish-mash of human and animal parts, is subject to confusion and terror and joy as life lives and dies in front of his eyes. The track itself a great introduction to On The Water, highlighting Van Vliet’s intimate, impassioned vocals and delicate arrangements which place the songs somewhere between the folk songs of Keaton Henson and Bonnie “Prince” Billy:

“Autumn leaves are falling to the ground. They decay but they are becoming something else. All will be and all will be born again. Finally all will be formless. All things must go. All things must go that way”

You can buy Cordelia now via the On The Water Bandcamp page. Nnamdi Ogbonnaya also has a Bandcamp page, where you will find his wonderfully strange multi-instrumental compositions.

P.S. On The Water are currently touring the US. You can find all the dates and details here.

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The Wytches are members of what is essentailly the garage rock-revival-revival, joining bands like Screaming Females and Krill in a sub-genre that is attempting to make rock darker and weirder. If you think strange surfy, grungy rock would appeal to you then check out the video below, shot by Steve Gullick and cut by Hoodbats.

Pre-order Wire Frame Mattress from Heavenly in the UK, and Partisan in the North America.

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If the song wasn’t already creepy enough, Heather Rappard teamed up with Justin Lees to make a surreal art inspired video. If you’ve ever wondered what live action painting might look like, look no further.

You can get ‘Dark Arts’ on a pay-what-you-want basis on the Baby Cages Bandcamp, and the video can be seen below. The duo plan to release the LP in the near future so keep an eye out for that too.

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