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Sinner Frenz Separation from Church and State SINNERFRENZ.BANDCAMP.COM
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usic has done a number on Luke Tweedy. He was a record store guy with a uniquely acerbic bedside manner. He taught himself electronics and audio engineering and built his recording studio, Flat Black, from scratch. He’s documented (in first-rate commercial recordings) adventurous music from Iowa and beyond. He founded the infamous ft(The Shadow Government), whose punk anti-music weirdness was a hallmark of the 2000s Iowa City experimental music scene. He founded the Grey Area Music Festival, which takes place on the grounds of Flat Black Studios. So what does Tweedy do when he gets a day off? Most recently, he teamed up with Brendan Spengler and Ed Bornstein.for the Sinner Frenz project. Together, they assemble songs out of modular synthesizer sounds, guitar pedals and drum machines. Bornstein (Foul Tip, Be Kind To Your Mother) provides percussion. There are also vocals from Tweedy and Jenny Hoyston of Erase Errata. Tweedy adds sounds from his idiosyncratic noise gizmos, effects and studio magic. It is raw electronic music with occasional distorted vocals. Separation from Church and State (out April 20) is a studio production, but each song begins as a live performance on modular synthesizer. Spengler adds occasional live keyboards. It’s a cliche to call music unique, but I don’t know anyone else making this particular thing—equal parts outsider industrial music like
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Coil and bleak, mechanistic punk rock like Suicide. “Sin Comin On” is a key track. It’s wrapped on an armature of a heavy, distorted drum loop and filthy, distorted bass. Over this, Tweedy yells/ sings “I can feel a sin coming on.” The embrace of distortion and noise is so finely worked it’s paradoxically almost elegant. Techno influences the repetitive beats, but techno is usually aimed and producing dance floor ecstasy. This is dark, mechanical music, driven by the relentless clock of the modular synth. In the context of Iowa, it has a different vibe. You can hear the wind over the flat land of rural Iowa, stirring up and making something new from musical concepts first imagined in Berlin, London and downtown New York. The fat synth lead in “Disconnect” recalls Gary Numan’s “Cars”; the vocals seem to float into the song like pirate shortwave radio signals. Brendan Spengler’s love of techno pop is evident in his previous work, but “Disconnect” is a purer expression of that love, a perfect machine of a song, as shiny as it is bleak. It echoes the no nonsense electro of Neil Young’s Trans and the more dystopian side of Devo. The chief animating force for Sinner Frenz is the raw experimentation with minimal gear that goes on in dank Iowa basements. They seek a dark lushness, where every sound’s sensual texture stands on its own. Flat Black Studios is full of vintage microphones and boutique audio processors, but they remember what it’s like to struggle with a broken Casio to make something true and vital. It’s music made with an extreme economy of extravagant means. Separation from Church and State goes all in on its punk electronic aesthetic, which means that it may not be for everyone. But for those who like Kraftwerk as much as stoner metal, who connect viscerally with the raw beauty of square waves and overdriven filters, this record will do the job. —Kent Williams
evoke reaching out or looking across distances through time and/or space. It’s appropriate that one of the earliest tracks—titled “Wyoming”— slips between easy-going pop-rock and sprawling strings that conjure the image of a strong, independent woman pulling away from a curb because she’s sick of someone’s shit (“A childhood home set on fire”). Song narrators focus on movePictoria Vark ment and the strange confidence The Parts I Dread of the wondering wanderer; that is, striding toward the unknown, PICTORIAVARK.BANDCAMP.COM sure-footedly unsure. She tells us obody sounds like Pictoria there’s “more to be than in Demarest Vark. She’s a classic punk / More to live for than I know yet.” Tracks like “Demarest” and “Out” balladeer and veritable witch of the North. Her melodies are cool don’t neglect the corresponding urge and ethereal. It’s the lyrics that to break free; from an ode to escapare warm, and when she sings, her ing New Jersey’s suburban air to the voice is naked: wholly unadul- delightfully forthright, “I wanted out terated and unpretentious. Carrie / I wanted out / This fucking house / Brownstein would be a fan if she I wanted out.” isn’t already. The artist’s history of travel and wanderlust is a critical influence. By day, Pictoria Vark is bassist Victoria Park, touring THE SONG “TWIN” SEEMS with Squirrel Flower DESTINED TO OPEN A and schooling Twitter FUTURE CULT CLASSIC, (@pictoriavark) on everything from workCOMING-OF-AGE DARK ers’ rights to life on the COMEDY DRAMA road. She’s a citizen of the world, having lived in folk aesthetic microcosms like Wyoming In fact, there are moments in (of course) as well as cultural hubs Pictoria Vark’s latest album, The like Paris and NYC. Currently setParts I Dread, that sound like organ- tled in Iowa City, we should enjoy ic, unprocessed Sleater-Kinney. You her company while we can. This can picture her recording instrumen- summer, she’ll tour and promote The Parts I Dread, which arrives on April tal tracks in a garage studio. Play The Parts I Dread on a 8 for streaming and download. The vinyl release from Get Better cloudy afternoon. As you listen to the opening bars of “Twin” for the Records is available on Aug. 12— first time, feel free to imagine you’re for now; press issues (read: supply the main character in a ’00s-era in- chains) have pushed back the release die film. The song seems destined to date multiple times. Regardless, it open a future cult classic, coming-of- will be worth the wait. This is an age dark comedy drama, as Pictoria album made for vinyl. The rocking Vark effortlessly intones over a clas- guitar that closes out “I Can’t Bike” sic, understated bass: “Born on the simply must blast from two giant, same fateful day in June / I was an wooden speakers. hour ahead of you.” —Melanie Hanson While accessible, the album is highly introspective. The themes
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