Tag: gothic

TRACK | Paul Bergmann – We Suffer, We Live Too Well

5/5 golden merles

No Masters in Paradise is an exquisite set of gothic rock lamentations for “a world which dies in the near distance.” The honey-drenched tones move in their own time, the invocations galvanized in a mercilessly compelling timbre. Their heralding is welcome. It feels like what a form of rock music might resemble in a declining empire coming to terms with degradation, a clearer assessment, which is to say dustier but less diluted, one by which its subjects might become better acquainted with themselves: grandiose and pensive, drifting and caroming over the graveyard.

It’s wholly against my type to select the longest track on an album as the feature. Six minutes is several lifetimes worth of material in which to stagnate and strangle, stumble into a dead end at any given moment. But instead it comes across as one of those rare instances when the town crier is just too damn good. Subsumed in the gently ravaged waves, lyrical alternations around the central chorus and the instrumental accompaniment keep the melody vitalized, always partially submerged, branching out alive in well saturated soil.

Hardly is anything ever this thrilling that moves in such deliberate slow motion, nor do tracks often proffer this balance of lumbering and lively. It’s a different kind of beast, class and character. It seems to be pulling from another source, a discarded set of components from the lineage of rock that is ever-present and instantly familiar but hardly ever chosen to fixate upon. Unrepentantly anthemic without the inane or orthodox excesses, you should probably study its habits.

Probably well received by admirers of Wish You Were Here era Pink Floyd, or, of the more common era, Phosphorescent/Matthew Hauk, the last few Cut Worms efforts, and Peace de Resistance’s recent Boston Dynamics.

It feels to me like there’s a zero percent chance this doesn’t end up on vinyl at some point. But for the god forsaken time being, there are 50 very fine looking cassettes up for $7, and it’s the same for the digital album transaction.

TRACK | Eric Angelo Bessel – Kindly Rewind

5/5 golden merles

“Kindly Rewind” is the second single off Eric Angelo Bessel’s upcoming ambient and experimental Visitations LP. Within the first few iterative whorls you can feel its resonance and reach, replete with much wonder and otherworldly artifacts of interest. Make of it what you will, but there is good raw material collected and methodically ordered as though it is a gift. The melody and its deterioration reads as though conflicted, situated at the helm, wary but intrigued, gazing into a great abyss.

The track contains a worthy extent of daunting search charted across this route; you will accompany it, feeling out the loop through interlocking synths and the steady pull of movement in some direction. The rich texture and tone provide credulity, allowing the listener to indulge in the peculiar and startling act of remaining within the motion and moment. It is transportive and properly weighted. It lends itself to speculation, curiosity, and feels like a soundtrack for celestial expanse or the uncharted subterranean. It knows the act of careening results in eventual harmony and has the craters to prove it. I find it to be delicate and consequential noise.

If work is described as “cinematic” you can in fact add it to your own life and enhance whatever small intrigues you find yourself embroiled within, ok? Not everything must be subsumed and reframed through yet another vignette of media, narrowing the field of experience down into manageable units of another’s intention.

In any case, it stands on its own. I would be proud if I had made it. If we are primarily defining ourselves through consumption of various media, best to have at least a few pieces included that allow you to focus primarily on your own becoming. The piece seems to encourage considered action in this way, elegantly embodying a balanced sense of doubt and hope, and that is a rare and valuable quality.

Vinyl preorder is available on the bandcamp for $20 from Portland’s Lore City Records, or $8 for the digital album. It releases April 21st.