Equipped with an electric guitar, 80s Casio keyboard and (in her own words) “all the heartbreak she can wring out of wet cloth vocals,” Ash Nataanii solo is, on the surface, a very different beast to the Ash Nataanii that fronts Fuuls. Gone is the ferocious aggression, the throat-shredding yells reined in, replaced with something far more tender but no less cathartic. This is vulnerable indie pop with a steely edge, Nataanii exploring life as a queer indigenous person in a style that is fun and defiant and very much unique. “Exit Music for Exit Wounds is as much exorcism as it is prophecy,” she explains. “It’s a scrapbook of familiar sounds and a sneak peek at heartbreak yet to be.”

Today we have the pleasure of unveiling the album’s debut single. Titled ‘Everything Must Go’ it is a three minute illustration of what to expect from the album and the perfect introduction to Ash Nataanii as a solo artist. The lo-fi aesthetic is juxtaposed by a depth afforded by the rich combination of buoyant beats and electric guitar, giving the impression that Nataanii has wrung out every drop of potential without sacrificing that DIY rawness. Above all this, Nataanii’s expressive and direct vocals are given license to take centre stage, quickly proving that she can express herself just as well with a “whimper” as a shout.

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Placid Lake is an album based around themes of grief, mourning and self-doubt, adopting an earnest, vulnerable tone that aims for sincerity and honest connection. The songs serve not only as a personal process of grieving but also a communal invitation to the listener to do likewise. Through this, remembrance and longing are wrought into something altogether more joyful, memories and emotions used in a celebration of life, and those now gone but not forgotten. After first single ‘Your Eyes‘ introduced the Bombshell Nightlight sound, we’re happy to be able to share the second single, ‘Death Day’, which picks up many of these themes directly. As the label describes:

The song deals with celebrating the death day anniversary of a loved one who has passed, and the emotions of grief that come with it. Specifically, Cardiello sings about the loss of his father when he was a child and the years of processing and grief that have accompanied that loss.

The video, directed by Marshall Granger, supports this. Shot at the the location of Cardiello’s recording, the film brings to life the simplicity and natural beauty of the area, and further draws the impact of that space from the music. Furthermore, it reinforces the urgency of Cardiello’s words, railing against the accepted wisdom of death and loss through imagery both peaceful and frantic. This is something of a theme for the track as a whole, competing emotions mirroring the condition of bereavement, where intrinsic beliefs are guessed at and questioned by outsiders, conventional wisdom stretched over an unconventional state, and serving no purpose beyond the creation of tension and guilt.

“I don’t see the difference,” Cardiello sings at the crescendo of the song, “no-one’s gone forever / we’re swimming in the pool of memories.” The statement becomes something of a mantra, and forms the overriding position of the track. The message here does not appear to be one of ‘moving on’ from loss, but rather re-configuring its meaning into a more useful shape. Which is to say, a lack of reason or explanation does not equate to a lack of meaning. Bombshell Nightlight use absence not as proof of nothingness but the very opposite, as validation of life and evidence of meaning, emptiness mapped by what surrounds it.

Placid Lake is set for release on the 17th August via Anything Bagel and Reflective Tapes.

Photo by Emily Johnson

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Dead Skin Cells is Efinger’s attempt to deal with a move to New York, an event which offered her first chance to meditate on the dark things in her life whilst being physically removed from them. This caused a lot of rumination on the importance of the familiar, and whether geographic location alone can have an effect on a person. In place of the regular bio or blurb, the album is introduced by a poem by Efinger’s friend Becca Uliasz, which captures this feeling far better than I can:

“maybe the places we are in change what we are
maybe context rubs off on us the way we leave dead skin cells in the places we frequent
maybe it leaves its cells on us the same way
and we just trade back and forth
until we aren’t us or here or there but a new thing altogether” – becca uliasz

Like most of the songs on Dead Skin Cells, opening track ‘mother’ is short and sparse and deceptively dark, just simple ukulele and Efinger’s soft and almost child-like vocals delivering lyrics darkly surreal. “in a dream me’s (?) were crying black blood and water / my mom didn’t see me floating like a sheet of paper.” ‘projection’ doesn’t even break the minute barrier, a sweet song about sending thoughts back home, and the personal stand-out ‘dark hearts’ sounds like its drifting from a quiet bedroom window, a feeling increased by the distant sounds of sirens, and has a chorus that is eerily resonant with the book I’m reading at the moment.

“We break our little hearts
you broke my little heart
when thunder struck your little life
when we were apart”

‘cereal box’ is a song about personal habits and (wrongly) feeling sad and stupid for being the person you are, opening with the perfect lines “he caught you in a cereal box said why do you eat so much? / said why you wasting my money a battle cries a crutch / he caught you in your room at two watching pokemon / said you’ll never do anything why you wasting your day off?” ‘sundrops’ feels reflective and somehow more hopeful, conjuring that golden feeling of watching a sunset and being aware of all your problems but not overwhelmed by them, of feeling like one little person in a very big world and being okay with that. All that’s left then is ‘will you’, which is about missing someone dearly, about sending letters and the solace in looking at the same moon.

The tapes have already sold out, but you can get ratbath’s Dead Skin Cells right now as a name-your-price digital download via the Fox Food Records Bandcamp page or the ratbath Bandcamp page.

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