I'm always personally excited to hear anything new from Locrian OR Horseback, so you can imagine how much I was looking forward to THIS. The avant-drone equivalent of a particularly stellar issue of 'Marvel Team-Up' from heavy hitters Locrian and one-man stealth unit Horseback - two collaborative tracks on one of those pesky one-sided 12"s. However, in THIS instance the blank space on the B-side is given over to an etching by the ever-wondrous Denis Forkas Kostromitin, who also provides the beautiful cover, so I really can't complain about the space being wasted.
Both tracks contained herein were written by Horseback mainman Jenks Miller and the titanic Locrian trio of Terence Hannum, Steven Hess and Andre Foisy in full collaboration, and it really is a match made in drone-heaven.
First track, 'The Gift', is a hazy miasma of bad intentions and encroaching dread, the soundtrack to a particularly harrowing scene in a particularly creepy movie. Echoing footsteps, deep-sea ambience and the far-off sound of bowed metal give the track it's spine, a distant tolling, slowly rolling drums and an inhuman croak of a vocal provide the icing on this poisonous cake. Short and not at all sweet.
Second track, 'Our Epitaph', amps up the creep factor and slathers on the dread. A slowly see-sawing bassline, brushed hi-hat and a treated vocal that sounds like a priest giving mass from inside a deep well are to the forefront here, and just on the edge of hearing, a droning violin-like sound that makes the hairs on the back of the neck stand up. The more the track plays, the more the dread rises. More edge-of-hearing sounds creep in, a roaring as of voices howling on the wind and an electronic feedbacking tone that almost sounds like a trumpet or clarinet foremost among them. If you haven't looked over your shoulder at least once during the thirteen minutes of 'Our Epitaph' then you may well already be dead.
As I stated earlier, this is very much a dream-team for lovers of avant-drone/experimental music, and the four musicians involved mesh together as though they have been doing this their whole lives. Mysterious and creepy, altogether ooky, buy this and FEAR.
Jenks Miller's solo project Horseback has recently received wider exposure due to reissues via Relapse, but Horseback still remains far more complex than most other artists with a metal bent to their sound. Chicago's Locrian is now a trio after vocalist/keyboardist Terence Hannum and guitarist Andre Foisy added the accomplished experimental percussionist Steven Hess to their lineup last year. Coming off 2010's distinctly different LPs Territories and The Crystal World, they have developed into a unique balance of dark atmospheres and avant garde sounds. This release is partially a celebration of the upcoming Utech Music Festival, as these two are both the headlining acts, but it’s anything but a merchandising cash grab.
The shorter "The Gift" opens with heavily reverberated guitar noises and improvised percussion from Hess. Amidst the swirling chaos there’s guitar to be heard: rapid, sparsely effected notes that shine like a pinhole of light in the otherwise oppressive blackness. The vocals sound more like Horseback to me, so I'm guessing it’s Miller's guttural, pained vocals that instantly reminded me of Danny from The Shining. Half way in the drums lock into a more traditional rhythm, and the remainder would almost be a lush ambient piece if it wasn’t so heavy and evil sounding.
The longer "Our Epitaph" slowly lurches along over a sparse distorted bass and drum rhythm, which, when combined with the monastic, chanted vocals (which sound like Hannum, but I’m guessing), feels like a ritualistic chant, austere and focused. In the background a combination of guitar and synthesizer come together violently, slowly becoming the focus and engulfing the liturgical chants.
The thing is, this sounds not like a collaboration in the traditional sense but like a singular project that perfectly balances the influence of the individual parts. Miller's unique combination of black metal and old school minimalism perfectly matches Locrian's film-score like bleakness and juxtaposition of noise and structure. New Dominions sounds like the work of both artists, but neither one in particular. It highlights both of their strengths, blended into a perfectly unified whole that's among the best I have ever heard in this currently unnamed category of experimental metal. I just hope this isn’t the only collaboration these two bands will unleash.
Collaborations can be tough: Oftentimes for bands, opening up a hermetic artistic space to include someone new is simply a pleasurable break from ritual, a chance to have an unexpected variable impact an old, familiar circuit. The product, then, might not matter as much as the process, meaning that what's fun for the musicians to make might not be so good for listeners to hear. Especially when the collaborators are bands with highly developed styles of their own, the results tend to be awkward and hesitant, the sound of unfamiliar allies still looking for their best way to work.
Chicago noise metallurgists Locrian and Chapel Hill's Horseback, the nom de guerre of like-minded form bender Jenks Miller, are such bands. Locrian pushes the limits of violence in harsh noise and extreme metal with maniacal enthusiasm, making a sound that's so mean it often starts to seem pretty. Last year's Territories, for instance, blended black metal and power electronics to a point that threatened to burn speaker wires, making the band's comedowns that much more compelling. Meanwhile, Horseback does much the same in a much more relaxed and languid Southern fashion, adding just enough influence of rhythm 'n' blues in concoctions of sludge, drone and noise to defrost the music's cold Scandinavian core. It's easy to imagine how a collaboration between the two could be stilted, the relentless push of Locrian canceling the measured pull of Horseback until all momentum is squandered.
And New Dominions—recorded last September when Locrian toured to North Carolina for Hopscotch Music Festival—is a rather still listen. Six-minute opener "The Gift" marches with impossible patience as lonely bass drum mutters hold the anchor amid noise that trickles like lava and vocals that suggest a slow strangle to silence. The eruption is slight, with broken drum rolls eventually punctuating the din. "Our Epitaph," the other piece on the one-sided vinyl release, is more than twice as long. Like the lead, it's a work of slowly devolving stasis. A lashed bass guitar, angry vocals and a hi-hat that snaps shut with industrial purpose start the piece. "Tremors of sky/ Punctuated by flares/ Above primeval ruins," a voice invokes, recalling the ruinous landscapes of Territories. The sound is steadily swallowed by an ocean of piercing feedback and subterranean tone; order is overwhelmed.
Paradoxically, this collaboration works because it finds solidarity in misanthropy. Mean as hell, loud as your speakers will allow, New Dominions is the sound of old ideas imploding.
"The Wooden Word", pastels on paper, 72x69cm, 2010
