A Brighter Light
A benefit compilation for Los Angeles
LISTEN TO THE COMPILATION HERE
I've curated a compilation for Los Angeles wildfire relief. Half of the proceeds goes to the Wildfire Recovery Fund. The other half goes to the Pasadena Humane Society. For the first week, I'll match up to $100 of the total proceeds and donate it to a third charity, GiveDirectly.
The compilation is hosted on Ampwall. Bandcamp may come at a later date if there's demand for it. A Brighter Light runs 65 minutes; being able to fit this onto a CD was important to me. It's sequenced to remind you of the sense of discovery that came with reading through one of the old Aquarius Records email lists. It contains songs from some of my favorite underground artists of the past few years, including three new songs from Agenbite Misery, Adapar (Álvaro Domene and Álvaro Pérez), and Silent Shepherd’s Horn. I'm biased, but I think it's great. I, of course, want to extend a huge, huge thanks to everyone who's involved. Details of each band and the artwork are below.
Mindvac - "Speak Friend"
Mindvac is the master of the progressive post-hardcore riff. The Charlotte trio is a big ball of energy, forever rolling forward. Other bands might get lost in these knotty riffs, these gloriously entwined head-exploders that somehow exhibit a density along with their fleetness. Mindvac doesn’t get lost, though. No, it is music in motion. "Speak Friend," one of the highlights from the band's 2023 self-titled EP debut, which was also my 15th favorite album of the year on Wolf's Week, is that forward momentum in action, taking you on a journey whether you're ready or not.
From: Mindvac (2023)
Mindvac is:
Syd Little - guitar/vocals
Andy Cummins - bass
Garrett Herzfeld - drums
Written and recorded by Mindvac
Mixed/mastered by Marshall Wieczorek
Album art photo by Justin Smith
Instagram
Bandcamp
Spotify
Email: mindvactheband@gmail.com
Plain Cheese Pizza - "Camels (can go a very long time without drinking any water)"
Plain Cheese Pizza's 2021 self-titled debut is one of the most creative EPs released so far in the 2020s, a burst of avant-garde shot through with an invigorating punkiness. Think Sexual Jeremy if it dedicated itself to RIO bands like Univers Zero and shreddy prog like Yezda Urfa. The, ahem, crusty pizza on the album's cover ties it all together in that it doesn't tie anything together at all: One of Plain Cheese Pizza's best features is that you'll never know what's coming next. To that end, "Camels (can go a very long time without drinking any water)" is wild, a rollercoaster of prog and zeuhl that zooms through a number of heady locales. But, and this is key, it's unbelievably cohesive, too. Like Mindvac, Plain Cheese Pizza will take you on a journey. Also like Mindvac, you're never jostled. It's perfect landing every time even if you don't know the destination.
From: Plain Cheese Pizza (2021)
Plain Cheese Pizza is:
Wylie Ferguson - Guitar, compositions
Thomas Hoeller - Guitar
Kria Wall - Voice
Katie Stewart - Violin
Johanna Hauser - Bass Clarinet
Chad Galpin - Bass
Eliot Doyle - Drums, shades
Mixed by Wylie Ferguson and Thomas Hoeller
Mastered by Thomas Hoeller
Cover art by Shelby Brooks
Wrack - "Repulsive Gravity"
In 2022, I wrote the following about Wrack, the solo project of Tyler Cox from The Mass, among other bands:
Repulsive Gravity's 11-minute title track is the best of three thanks to its crushing, death metal chugs and lurches. But the song is strange around the edges, opening with a noise rock strum that could've opened a Brass Knuckles for Tough Guys record. Then, there's a tweener part between the verses that has an echo-y post-punk quality, that near-dub sort of reverb-y rebound. When Wrack metallizes that section, it hits extra hard, providing the death/doominess that extra smidgen of swing.
That said, Wrack's best quality is its patience. It builds these songs slowly, lulling the listener with hypnotic sections that have the insistent rhythm of a swinging watch. Then, Cox drops the hammer. I love how "Repulsive Gravity" descends into its solo section, its panic shredding perfectly contrasting the chugs that Wrack has played so persistently that they feel like a metronome. It's a nice bit of songwriting know-how.
Naturally, Repulsive Gravity was ranked as my 23rd favorite album of that year.
From: Repulsive Gravity (2022)
Wrack is:
Tyler Cox: drums, bass, guitar, voice
Recorded and mixed by Tyler Cox
Additional engineering by Matt Cohen
Mastered by Thomas Dimuzio
Artwork and design by SoloMacello
Bandcamp
Email: wrackaudio@gmail.com
Genevieve - "Ego part 2: Harrowing Halls of their Infernal Hubris"
Baltimore’s Genevieve is another band I’ve covered a few times, most notably in Stereogum’s The Black Market. I wrote:
Beginning with a subdued but throbbing, rhythmic riff and a clean-ish bass line that walks around it, “Ego Part 2” sets a listener up for stretches of quietude. Naturally, Genevieve offset that section with an ultra-aggressive onslaught of hammering death/sludge. Rhodes (vocals), Mike Apicella (guitar), Keith Mathias (bass), and Matt Powell (drums) inventively flip between these two approaches for the rest of the song. There’s an extended section of knotty, skittering arpeggios that sounds like Virus collaborating with Maudlin Of The Well. There’s a cascade of caustic riffs that could be Ehnahre if it embraced the esotericism of later Emperor. Pensive progging, frenzied forays into sanity decaying, reflective respites that are unnervingly soothing: all of that is there and more, and it’s not hard to recognize the contrasts between sections. And yet, the rise and fall that sets up these mood swings are so cohering, making the extremes feel like they’re part of the same song. “We spent a lot of time on this album and put a lot of effort into it,” Akratic Parasitism‘s Bandcamp liner notes state. “Ego Part 2” is proof that it paid off.
Akratic Paraistism was my 21st favorite metal album of that year.
From: Akratic Parasitism (2023)
Genevieve is:
Eric Rhodes: Bass VI, Vocals, Keyboards
Keith Mathias: Bass Guitar, Vocals
Mike Apicella: Guitar
Matt Powel: Drums
Photography: Jesse Mathias
Album Cover Design: Keith Mathias and Eric Rhodes
Engineered by GENEVIEVE
Mastered by: Eric Rhodes
Agenbite Misery - "Cascara Sagrada"
Agenbite Misery might be the most interesting thing in New Hampshire. The trio makes brainy brutality that loosely fits under the omnicore umbrella, that being bands that pull from many genres simultaneously. For "Cascara Sagrada," Agenbite Misery is in aggressive death metal plus black metal mode. But that amalgam also burns hot with a core-derived energy. Think if Convulsing crashed into Pyrrhon. And, like everything else on this compilation, it's undeniably progressive in the true sense of the word, pushing its music past the boundaries and landing somewhere else. Also, that near-discordant crescendo that closes the song like a bomb blast is sick. That's also important.
From a forthcoming release
Agenbite Misery is:
Guitars - Sam Graff
Bass - Cam Netland
Drums - Adam Richards
All of us do vocals.
Recorded by the band. Mixed and mastered by Eric Sauter at Blackheart Sound in Manchester NH.
Agenbite Misery adds:
This song follows and pulls lyrics from the fourth section of Joyce's Ulysses, 'Calypso.' It follows the novel's protagonist as he wakes up for the day, prepares breakfast, and goes to the bathroom. Our interpretation of the chapter focuses on the horrific mundanity of everyday life and the insidious personal implications for those wounded by it.
Painted Throat - "A Big Rain Pours Some Leaves Out Of The Trees"
The Clock Shaken From The Wall has grown into one of my favorite experimental releases, becoming a bud during late-night writing and studying sessions. For my 2023 year-end list, I wrote:
The Clock Shaken From The Wall is a killer creation from two members of Ehnahre. It kicks off with grimy, sludgy doom, complete with bass grooves that seem to sway like unsecured items on the deck of a ship tossed amidst tumultuous waves. That one is a little weird, but you can wrap your brain around it. Hang on tight. The album only gets more abstract from there. There's dreams-of-a-dead-bird drone, caterwauling chaotic death metal a la Impetuous Ritual, and every creepy-crawly you can imagine in between. You bet, Painted Throat can be terrifying in its most maximalist modes. Yet, its most compelling and unnerving moments unfold in the quietest interludes, such as its walls-melting avant-garde closer, with disembodied whispers and paranormal scrapes and bangs accentuating the dread lurking within the shadows of negative space.
From: The Clock Shaken From The Wall (2023)
Painted Throat is:
Joshua Carro: Drums
Ryan McGuire: Bass, Voice
Bandcamp
Email: ryanmcguire.bass@gmail.com
Adapar - "Jägala"
Álvaro Domene has been in these pages a ton, including a fascinating interview conducted last year.
Adapar is Domene's collaboration with saxophonist Álvaro Pérez. The duo absolutely goes for it on "Jägala," creating these captivating textures of chugs that waver like mirages upon hot asphalt and skittering saxophone runs that are like alien spiders scampering to inspect you. The song's final half is exhilarating, adding drums that sound like a sped-up Autechre to these two's shredfest.
From a forthcoming release slated for 2025
Adapar is:
Álvaro Domene: electric guitar, drum synth/sampler
Álvaro Pérez: saxophones
Composed by: Domene
Published by Dometone Music BMI
alvarodomene.com
ilusorecords.com
Adapar adds:
In the vast expanse of the Milky Way, where it’s likely we might be the only civilization capable of self-awareness and contemplating existence, our choices hold cosmic significance. If we continue allowing the destruction of our planet at the hands of those in positions of power, we risk erasing meaning itself in a galaxy that may never know it again. This is then not just an earthly responsibility, I believe it’s a universal duty. We begin with cooperating within our communities to survive so that we can organize to overthrow all political order based on authority and centralized concentrations of coercive power, actively practice and build egalitarian alternative institutions, and live to see a new society of free and equal members based upon social ownership, individual liberty, and autonomous self-management of social and economic life, as many pre-colonial societies managed for thousands of years till white Europeans thirsty for power and blood showed up in every corner of this Earth and imposed their will by force to exploit and ruin literally everything, in only 500 years. If you are not feeling an intense sense of urgency and deep intergenerational rage yet, consider that our home is about 4.5 billion years old. The time to act is therefore yesterday. Let’s build a future based on living in reciprocity with our communities and our planet, building networks of safety through genuine acts of love, just like so many neighbors have been doing in what’s left of Altadena and other areas of Los Ángeles after the horrific fires.
In other words, we must take the principle of Solidarity to its logical conclusions, for what we do today will decide whether the Universe continues to hold meaning or slips into silence.
Our gratitude to Ian for inviting us to be included in this compilation, and our love, support, and solidarity with the communities impacted by the fires in southern California.
Ehnahre - "Las Pinturas Negras"
Speaking of fascinating, Ehnahre has been pushing the boundaries of extreme music for years. El Perro, its most recently released collection out on the always reliable Fiadh Productions, is "improvisations inspired by three of Francisco Goya's Black Paintings- 'An Old Man and a Monk,' 'The Drowning Dog' and 'The Fates.'" "Las Pinturas Negras," the closer, may be the quietest song on this compilation, with its Henry Cowell-esque pianos, near-whispered vocals, and distorted, droning tones. Still, it's as heavy as anything here, using "[the] darkness found in The Black Paintings" to create this dynamic, evocative work that translates the "extreme tension" of Goya's masterpieces into music. As good as it gets.
From: El Perro (2024)
Ehnahre is:
Joshua Carro: Drums
Richard Chowenhill: Guitars
Ryan McGuire: Bass, Voice
Jared Redmond: Piano
Recorded in Berkeley, CA, Beverly, MA and Phoenix, AZ between 2021 and 2023
Mixed and Mastered by Richard Chowenhill at Sunset Mastering
Published by Fiadh Productions
Email: ehnahrebooking@gmail.com
Silent Shepherd's Horn - "Rushed On In Blindness Of Destiny"
You may remember Silent Shepherd's Horn, the Kansas City solo project of Ergtoth Grifton, from its split with chamber grinders Vmthanaachth. That's only one side of the multi-mode black metal entity. The band can work in longform hypnotism, such as the excellent "Neither Blood Nor Blossom," from 2023's Demo IV, or it can rage. "Rushed On In Blindness Of Destiny" rages. From the opening avalanche of drums on, the song does precisely what its title implies, rushing ever forward like an unimpeded stream. It's a thrilling conclusion to the compilation, the kind of hold-your-breath crescendo I've always liked as a finale.
Ehnahre is:
Ergtoth Grifton - guitars, jamstick, drum programming, editing
Art: Lev.fm
Lev.fm is one of the best artists in the underground, with work adorning some of the new classics of metal over the past decade-plus. Lev generated this piece based on a David Lynch quote about how the light always seemed brighter in Los Angeles. The flowers seem to soak up that light, additionally bathed in the halcyon glow of old film stock. But this isn't a paean to the past. The flowers suggest rebirth and regrowth, like those species that take root after a fire, such as the fireweed or the fire poppy. Viewed in that light, the piece takes on a new power: that even in this time of upheaval, flowers will once again bloom under that bright Los Angeles sun.