SEAMSTRESS “Euphrates” C30 (Skin Trade)

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 

ACTUARY / SEAMSTRESS “Split” (Skin Trade Recordings)

Atonal blackness envelops, night rife with existential danger. Caustic machinations manipulated for maximum terror haunt rather than emanate from stereo speakers, their psychic dread lasting long after the final tone is sounded. These cosmic nightmarescapes are augmented with horrifying vocalizations, communications from the very darkest pockets of existence, universes where decay and destruction mask the demonic inhabitants. The sounds resolve themselves in pulses of charred oblivion.

And that’s just the Actuary side! In somewhat of a reversal of what I’ve just described, Actuary has this message of gratitude on the inside of the j-card: “To those who struggle but get it done anyways.” Actuary gets it done, but the sound is the sound of struggle, difficult to hear and digest. But that’s the point. At any rate, “Possessing Power” is one of the coolest noise tracks I’ve heard in a while. It’s harsh but it’s surprisingly listenable as I recline in the jaws of an irate hellhound.

Seamstress does not let up on the unholy racket, plowing through the single track on side B, “Carbon Silhouette,” like their hair was on fire, or their gear, or the ground upon which they walk. Hallucinating the entire way through the side, Seamstress doles out harsh trip after harsh trip, magnifying the darkness inherent in the shadow of the silhouette cast. A nice counterpoint to Actuary, Seamstress plays music that’s the equivalent of a lava lamp filled with black liquid buoying black bubbles of a slightly different blackness. This whole thing’s a harrowing experience. It’s great to dig into.

Actuary
Skin Trade Recordings

--Ryan Masteller