How do we endure lengthy periods of great stress or hardship? Seamstress artfully tackles this throughout “Euphrates,” a “30-minute track of hallucinatory and caustic sound intent on conveying the effects of physical and emotional drought on the human psyche.” The cover photo, a barren ditch cut through the earth, is a striking counterpoint to the Euphrates River in the cradle of civilization, from which springs life. The filtered sky looks as brown and dead as the dirt and rocks. It’s a metaphor for the individual mentally strip-mined to emptiness, as well as a reminder that all life eventually returns to dust.
Seamstress feels the lack. Seamstress has been overwhelmed by it.
“Euphrates” begins with a boiling shriek and settles to a drone, through which emerge what sounds almost like a choir. It returns to utter desolation, but violently: sandstorms, swarms of insects, plague. Samples and effects pierce the air before dissipating, leaving only the long, lonely night whose emptiness, whose complete and utter aloneness, reverberates like phantom signals feeding back on each other. But hey – all that’s probably just in your head. Your poor, lost, dying head. Sleep tight!
Skin Trade
--Ryan
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