Written by Kep
Today we’re doing something we haven’t done before: featuring a charity compilation prior to its release. Organized by Ben Serna-Gray, Love Songs is an album whose proceeds will go to an extraordinarily worthy cause: assisting a Palestinian family in evacuating from Gaza. Serna-Gray has committed all sales to the GoFundMe campaign in support of Dr. Basil Elzeenaty and his eight family members. This campaign is fully vetted by Operation Olive Branch, a grassroots organization that responds to and amplifies aid requests from Palestinian victims of Israel’s ongoing genocide. Additionally, Serna-Gray is offering a free Mother Anxiety patch and sticker to anyone who provides proof of a $5 or more donation to Operation Olive Branch, while his supplies last. You can find full details at the Mother Anxiety Bandcamp. This is a tangible way to help Gazans in need, and we are proud to spotlight the compilation here at Noob Heavy.
(You can stream the first six tracks on Bandcamp right now.)
Love Songs is an eclectic 11-track listen featuring contributions from eight artists/projects, including two each from New Zealand atmosludge outfit Adzes, Californian sometimes black metal/sometimes experimental ambient project S H R I E K I N G, and Serna-Gray’s primarily electronic Mother Anxiety (we’ve covered Mother Anxiety here before). Electronic music features heavily here, even when it’s not immediately apparent, such as in the subtle buzzing undercurrent that sits as an uneasy bed of sound beneath tin and low whistles in Mother Anxiety’s “There is Still Some Tenderness Here”, or in the swirls of emotive synth that decorate the insistent syncopated piano of S H R I E K I N G’s “Home is With Them”. And of course, sometimes those electronics are extremely apparent: in “Onboarding Exercise”, the live-recorded techno stylings of Global Extinction Enterprises, for example, which punches and hums along in an unwavering electrogroove, and also in the startlingly weird “Harlow” from North Carolina noise oddball outfit Territorial Pissants, in which jarring digital exclamations that sound almost human yet horrendously alien jut and flail from a bubbling, jittering texture of synth.
If you’re looking for traditional instruments used in more familiar ways, don’t worry, because there’s plenty to enjoy on that front as well. Adzes’ two contributions both feature Forest Bohrer’s signature steely bass tone across ruminative post-metal atmospheres. “Done”, a cover of the Low song, is plaintive and homey, with little sliding gestures courtesy of guest pedal steel by Will Jameson, while “Lictor” is an instrumental demo of a new tune, warm yet sad and thoughtful. Everson Poe’s contribution is the nearly ten minute “Kintsugi”, featuring a slow build of enormous blackened doom with Mae Shults’ haunting falsettos eventually giving inevitable way to her tortured, cathartic screams. S H R I E K I N G also contributes “Emperor of Nothing”, a stunning and spacious exercise in gorgeous unorthodox depressive black metal textures that I’ll be going back to on multiple occasions.
Rounding out the comp’s runtime are tracks from Philly darkwave punks Your Ancestors Knew Death and anonymous noise/ambient project Touching Grass, plus a second contribution from Mother Anxiety. “ii”, that second Mother Anxiety track, is a scaled down unsettled selection of beeps and boops that rise and fall in waves, while “End of Days” from Your Ancestors Knew Death cruises along with infectious energy and that unquestionably punk bit of carefree swagger. Touching Grass’ album closing 15-minute soundscape “Through the Tears of Heaven” is an exercise in rainy day zen, with a field recording soundbed that’s like downpour white noise, while chimes and soft rattles sound.
Love Songs is a quality compilation featuring a ton of impressive tracks from a wide swathe of the metal and metal-adjacent scene, and it’s out this Friday. Working for a worthy cause and priced affordably on Bandcamp, it’s out this Friday, July 26, and is the sort of release we’re proud to put our support behind.