Utech/Sige

Locrian & Mamiffer – ‘Bless Them That Curse You’ 2LP
Bless Them That Curse You captures an unprecedented balance of claustrophobia and solace. It’s a strange alchemy to render something both inviting and alienating; it requires a special kind of skill to create music that sounds like it’s rattling apart at its seams, unraveling in a torturous but compelling fashion. It demands an acknowledgement of the fine line between noise and racket, between tension and tedium. Finding an interpersonal chemistry to pull it off can take years of searching and refinement. Initiated by a history of record swapping and mutual admiration, Chicago’s Locrian and Seattle’s Mamiffer managed to accomplish such a feat.  Since their inception in 2005, Locrian’s sound has thrived on harnessing emotional resonance through texture and space. Highlighting a specific melody or beat in their music is unnecessary; their ability to trigger unease, fear, despair, and paranoia by playing with dynamics in timbre and timing is the central fixture in their work. While the Chicago-based trio’s approach is certainly unorthodox, they are not without sonic peers. Seattle-based duo Mamiffer similarly explores new territories in sound by marrying fragmented elements of neoclassical, drone, and proto-industrial dirge into compositions that are beguiling, haunting, and occasionally violent. Originating as a solo project for pianist Faith Coloccia in 2007, the project grew to encompass husband Aaron Turner and a rotating cast of guest musicians. Coloccia’s work, by nature, is malleable and suited towards the collaborative process. The collaboration between the two groups yielded some of the most beautiful material Locrian has ever recorded, and inversely pushed Mamiffer into the most caustic of new territories. Composed and recorded in Chicago at the renowned Electrical Audio studio, the album is the result of two disparate approaches arriving at one cohesive voice. It’s at turns contemplative and reserved, unnerving and unsettling, thunderous and feral. Aided by the engineering prowess of Greg Norman, the mixing skill of Randall Dunn, and the auxiliary instrumentation of Alex Barnett (Oakeater) and Brian Cook (Russian Circles), Bless Them That Curse You is a richly textured study in an unconventional creative process, blending fine-tuned synchronicity with spontaneous brute force.

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