The Exit Bags Archives - Various Small Flames https://varioussmallflames.co.uk/tag/the-exit-bags/ New and independent music Wed, 20 Sep 2023 12:04:03 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://i0.wp.com/varioussmallflames.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/cropped-finalwhite-e1490809629909-1.jpg?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 The Exit Bags Archives - Various Small Flames https://varioussmallflames.co.uk/tag/the-exit-bags/ 32 32 88787050 The Exit Bags – Our Sun Will Clean its Holy Wounds https://varioussmallflames.co.uk/2023/09/20/the-exit-bags-our-sun-will-clean-its-holy-wounds/ Wed, 20 Sep 2023 12:04:03 +0000 https://varioussmallflames.co.uk/?p=38757 “At once striking and muted, confronting themes of existential urgency with a subdued, downbeat air, as though each song is played from the next room, a clamour with a blanket thrown over it.” That’s how we described Tower of Quiet by Edmonton, Alberta‘s The Exit Bags back in 2021. A record which fitted into The Flenser aesthetic of Drowse and Have a Nice Life to explore depression in all its strangeness, “evoking an unreal, disturbing mood that’s somehow both the sharpest […]

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]]> “At once striking and muted, confronting themes of existential urgency with a subdued, downbeat air, as though each song is played from the next room, a clamour with a blanket thrown over it.” That’s how we described Tower of Quiet by Edmonton, Alberta‘s The Exit Bags back in 2021. A record which fitted into The Flenser aesthetic of Drowse and Have a Nice Life to explore depression in all its strangeness, “evoking an unreal, disturbing mood that’s somehow both the sharpest and dullest edge.”

Now, Michael James has returned with Our Sun Will Clean its Holy Wounds, a new album from The Exit Bags, again released by Drongo Tapes and Joyless Youth. A release which again uses a blend of post-punk, slowcore, ambient and drone to weave a sound at once dense and drifting. Take the plaintive opener ‘Vanishing Cloud Burial’, which builds with an intangible quality as the vocals barely break a murmur, though eventually precipitates into its own storm. The result is something fearful and sublime, a mood typified by ‘At Least I Know Now’ and its direct reference to mortality. “I said I wasn’t scared,” as James sings. “I lied.”

A fear of death hangs over the record like a spectre, but with it too a twin terror of whatever comes between now and then. “[The record] is loosely based on the idea of becoming an increasingly unreliable narrator as time passes, while still trying to piece together one’s worries and fears,” as James explains. “Or, the concern that the way your mind processes information in the future will have regressed beyond your control, therefore making it impossible to satisfyingly reach closure.” Tracks like ‘Neglect’ and ‘An Injured Deer’s Final Moments’ offer an almost horror-esque picture, projecting life as the painful space between mortal blow and approaching darkness, while others like ‘Missile Gap Year’ blink in confusion as to why exactly the heart goes on beating all the same. The mood culminates on ‘The Cost of Living’, which mostly succinctly captures this sense of perpetual conclusion. How to go on living when the end seems so apparent? How to communicate through the static of a worried mind?

i don’t like letting you down
i will try to find my own way
across the end line
i will try to find the infected wound
that makes the choice mine
will you pull, and will you feel inclined
i wouldn’t judge you if you tried

Our Sun Will Clean its Holy Wounds is out now via Drongo Tapes and Joyless Youth and available from The Exit Bags Bandcamp page.

CD artwork for Our Sun Will Clean its Holy Wounds by The Exit Bags

album artwork by airick delgado / design a.d.

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]]> 38757 The Exit Bags – Gargoyles https://varioussmallflames.co.uk/2021/10/22/the-exit-bags-gargoyles/ Fri, 22 Oct 2021 19:00:55 +0000 https://varioussmallflames.co.uk/?p=26479 The recording project of Michael James from Edmonton, Alberta, The Exit Bags operates at the intersection of a variety of genres, with elements of ambient, drone, noise and slowcore, complimented by field recordings and other embellishments woven into an ambiguous style. New record Tower of Quiet captures the mood perfectly. One at once striking and muted, confronting themes of existential urgency with a subdued, downbeat air, as though each song is played from the next room, a clamour with a […]

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]]> The recording project of Michael James from Edmonton, Alberta, The Exit Bags operates at the intersection of a variety of genres, with elements of ambient, drone, noise and slowcore, complimented by field recordings and other embellishments woven into an ambiguous style. New record Tower of Quiet captures the mood perfectly. One at once striking and muted, confronting themes of existential urgency with a subdued, downbeat air, as though each song is played from the next room, a clamour with a blanket thrown over it.

A joint release by Drongo Tapes and Joyless Youth, Tower of Quiet was mixed by Kyle Bates of Drowse and mastered by Mount Eerie collaborator Nicholas Wilbur. Both Bates and Wilbur have worked with stalwart label The Flenser, the latter working with acts such as Midwife, Have a Nice Life, Planning for Burial and others, and The Exit Bags aesthetic is very much positioned within this cohort. Take single ‘Shingles’, which occupies the gloomy space between drone and heavy rock, its depths filled with an insulating fuzz which even the screamed vocals struggle to puncture.

The sound is fitting for a record concerned with depression, evoking an unreal, disturbing mood that’s somehow both the sharpest and dullest edge. Unlike many attempts to chart such a headspace, The Exit Bags refuses to romanticise the experience, or to pretend that some level of catharsis can clear the air. What’s left is a collage of a life within such conditions, a composite of images, feelings and references swirling beneath a density of noise both digital and organic. A life swaddled against the flames, numb but still burning.

Latest single ‘Gargoyles’ encapsulates such a style. What appears to be a slow and spacious song which creeps forward with unnerving purpose, the vocals like the pleas of something small and insignificant, the deep percussion like the footsteps of something too large to fully comprehend.

pull me up over the guard rail, and
pull me up onto the other side
lay me out in the pavilion
you told me that I would make it through the night

Check out the suitably ominous video by Rikkets below:

Tower of Quiet is out on the 22nd October via Drongo Tapes and Joyless Youth and you can pre-order it now from The Exit Bags Bandcamp page.

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