New Music From Aether Jag, Segaworms
Aether Jag
Amaranthine Stretch
(No Rent)
A case could be made that today, movie theaters are more important than ever for deliberate film-viewing since they discourage the temptation to incessantly check one’s hand-held mobile device and hitting the “pause” button on a remote control is not an option.
While record listening parties are a thing, they are primarily social events, and record store listening booths exist but are rare. The need for some kind of neutral space for deliberate listening—away from chores, relatives or roommates, or idle chatter—comes to mind when absorbing the strange and beautiful debut full-length Amaranthine Stretch from Providence, R.I. musician Bridget Venuti’s solo project Aether Jag, which finally comes after a decade of EPs and split releases.
From its first seconds, the album is mind-arresting; although there are aspects of it with ambient qualities, it’s not ignorable, background music. The loops and waves of “Rotting Kingdom” are both heavenly and disquieting, and there are nagging computer glitches, perhaps suggesting crude, artificial synapses that become sentient with sinister impulses; Venuti’s singing, often wordless or with incomprehensible lyrics, ring in an unsettling fashion.
The 16-minute “Swallow the Sun” features aural daggers like glistening icicles, and a meandering bass line brings the most basic semblance of structure; a rhythm churns like haunted, squeaky machinery, and dark, Lovecraftian depths are mined, where death or insanity are the only two outcomes.
As the album progresses, the sounds gradually become more prickly, and “Pale Ichor” features encroaching noise and static-infected sounds with more prominent beats, as Venuti babbles a sing-songy lullaby.
For “Conduit,” malfunctioning androids lie beneath floating, modulating vocals that sound like operatic wind gusts, while more human vocals mirror guitar chord shards.
More violent and harsh sounds emerge toward the album’s end, concluding with “Black Flamingo” using incongruous acoustic guitar strums among the maelstrom of abstract, seasick distress signals, acting as an aural escape pod to the unknown.
Segaworms
Doin’ It Asbestos I Can
(segamentedworms.bandcamp.com)
The one-man electronic band Segaworms, created by Chattanooga multi-instrumentalist Joseph J. Micolo III (also behind GTRUK and Vaus, and bassist for Lacing and Year of Confession), plays what it calls “soilcore,” an intense genre that’s obsessed with insects, viruses, fungi, toxic waste, dirt and other unpleasantness.
For its latest 16-track album, Doin’ It Asbestos I Can, instead of taking inspiration from tiny organisms or organic matter, it solely uses the digital kind of detritus.
To clarify, Micolo has drawn from his personal collection of over 2,000 sound samples—some are recent (including ones from his cat Annabananabelle Turtleham, who gets an album credit) and some date from as far back as 1995. Micolo then used random processes to slam these numerous small fragments together in a mind-bending aural assault.
However, not everything was left to chance—Micolo selected his favorite sequences, which were likely picked to evoke maximum disruptive chaos with jarring contrasts, and conducted severe manipulations on the sounds.
The album is the sound of sheer insanity, and listeners will probably either love it or consider it unlistenable, with its unrelenting barrage of distorted beats, warped snippets and echoing blasts.
Micolo’s electronic molestations change every few seconds, which will make all but the most hardy listeners probably lose their minds. A few samples are recognizable, from funk breakbeats or even Pee-Wee Herman quotes, but they’re all dramatically contorted.
Although the album hardly gives the listener a break or time to breathe, a few patches of quicksand, like one murky passage in “Suprestar,” are as close to musical punctuation as one will get here.
The most over-stimulated album this writer has heard in recent memory, Doin’ It Asbestos I Can is perhaps like a Gatling gun, loaded with syringes full of adrenaline, firing at you and piercing your heart.