Client Work is a section dedicated to recent client projects.
Founded in 2016 by DJs and producers Kloves and Nomad Black, Canadian underground techno label OBSKUR MUSIC was created to showcase LGBTQ+ and POC artists working in darker styles of electronic dance music.
I had the opportunity to collaborate with OBSKUR MUSIC on album write-ups for two of their releases in 2021 and 2022: SIGSALY’s Arrival and Sara Gold’s Isosafrole.
It was a treat to create written accompaniments to the music of these two Vancouver-based artists. Scroll to read the final pieces.
SIGSALY: Arrival (2021)
Arrival is the latest full length from Vancouver electronic dance duo SIGSALY, comprised of B. West and S. Lloyd, whose sinister and strident body music evokes the gloom of isolation and the ghosts of packed warehouse parties. Opening track “Aches” is an accelerated, brooding dirge built on dark and melodic basslines, wailing vocal echoes, claps and driving percussion. The album features dark electro bangers such as “C’est Physique”, a bouncy, industrial-laced anthem with an irresistible synth refrain punctuated with titular chants. “Dark Horse Blood” is screeching, punchy and distorted to perfection, with rough and ready sampled vocals muttering cursed numeric incantations between crunchy kicks. Emotive vocals and anxious synths pervade “Show of Force”, its tight drums converging with steady rhythmic shouts, and “Final Form” is an entrancing gothic workout: haunting, desolate, and menacingly human. SIGSALY’s signature elements of techno, minimal wave, and industrial coalesce powerfully in this exciting new collection out now on OBSKUR.
Sara Gold: Isosafrole (2022)
Since 2004, queer, non-binary, multidisciplinary artist Sara Gold has been earnestly pursuing their love of electronic sound equipment and analog instruments, honing a technique of no-input mixing with large-format vintage analog console mixers. Sidechained with a Roland TR-909 drum machine and run through a reel to reel tape delay, the mixers’ deep pulsations create a rich abstract soundscape of dark ambient rhythms. With an artistic practice that spans short film, live performance, sound art composition, and textile manipulation, Gold is an established figure in the Vancouver sound art and electronic music scene. They have performed extensively at regional venues and gatherings including Western Front (for the Electroacoustic Music Festival), Firehall Arts Centre, Scotiabank Dance Centre, Yellow House Galiano (for Active/Passive festival), Open Studios, and Vivo Media Arts Centre. Their prolific community involvement extends to teaching workshops on experimental analog electronic sound techniques at various venues, operating a 3-day festival of experimental sound, and serving as an administrative member of the Media Arts Committee sound art program and a member of the board for the Garden City Electronic Music Society. Isosafrole is their latest release and OBSKUR debut, following Gold’s 2018 LP Hello, Ocean? available on local label Jaz! Records and 2017 cassette Pitch on Vancouver’s NewBodyAlliance label. Composed exclusively of vintage analog sound equipment and referencing an organic compound derived from the sassafras plant, the title introduces this collection of tracks which form a story arc. The cycle begins with the harmonic drones of opener “Ocotea Pretiosa,” a beguiling introduction that builds into layers of cascading sound lulling one into an enchanted wood. Tensely thudding “Phenylacetone '' conjures a fight scene after an encounter with a familiar dark force embodied as the reflection of self, scored by a warm low electrical current cut with paranoid waves of static. Closer “Sassafras Albidum” strikes a triumphant groove with snaking oscillations of rhythmic feedback amid tendrils of deep kicks and sybillating hi-hats. Intended for deep listening and shuffling, Isosafrole conveys an abstract narrative of organic sound and embodied electricity.