V A S E S, the new collaborative EP which finds Canadian noise maker, Wet Nurse. and Alabamian spoken word exemplar Matt Finney in league, is a dark gem and marks the point in both artists' career in which they seem to be conquering their creative boundaries.
V A S E S is a new addition in Finney's storytelling series of collaborative releases; it narrates the confessions of a millenial girl who's having the worst night out and it plays like an agonizing movie.
The self-titled opener uses its enticing first thirty seconds to lure you in through an evocative piano line that could pass for a Depeche Mode introduction, right before Matt's dark poetry comes through alongside a beautiful bass line that could have easily belonged to Robert Smith's darkest and most drug-infused days. When as anticipated the distortion begins cracking up, you realize that all along you were being seduced into something much weirder and uncannier than what it first seemed. From the second track on, when the noise merges with the perversion, in a manner that feels like almost like an emulation of the protagonist's slow heartbeat, intervened by sudden arrhythmia, the EP has finally shown its true colors. It's harsh, it's erratic and it sneaks up on you.
V A S E S sounds dark the whole time, it senses panic and claustrophobia and although it's nicely camouflaged with a beautiful exterior, it conceals a fair amount of extremity and corruption, like the surprising, the probably most extreme so far, nearly supernatural-sounding deliverance of Matt Finney's spoken word poetry.
Although it begins at the most melodic the confluence of the two acts can get, it ends at a frightening peak, at the noisiest obtainable and it's worth every second of every repeat.
Play it below...
Physical editions coming hopefully soon.
ZR