- Though Blackest Ever Black's reputation comes mostly from their dark electronic releases, its aesthetic has encompassed a great deal more than that in the three years since its inception. In the past 12 months alone, label founder Kiran Sande has had forays into Goth revivalism (Tropic Of Cancer's Restless Idylls), free-rock minimalism (Shampoo Boy's Licht) and blackened punk (Raspberry Bulbs' Defamed Worship). The latest curveball, Secret Boyfriend's This Is Always Where You've Lived, might be the most abstruse thing Blackest Ever Black has ever released.
Secret Boyfriend is Ryan Martin, a singer, songwriter and noise artist from Carrboro, North Carolina (a scene that's also home to Profligate, Lazy Magnet and LACK). He already has a slew of cassettes and vinyl to his name, including titles on Ren Schofield's I Just Live Here and his own Hot Releases. Martin's music is a post-hypnagogic expression of the lo-fi rock tradition (as originally pioneered by the likes of Jim Shepard, Peter Jefferies, The Dead C, et al.). Much like those artists, he creates grainy home recordings that cut across a number of styles, in the process extinguishing the distinctions between song and sound collage, self-expression and sonic experimentation. Indeed, by the halfway mark of This Is Always Where You've Lived, listeners have already been exposed to guitar-driven slowcore ("Silvering The Wing"), harsh drone ("Flashback"), Giallo pastiche ("Summer Wheels"), and primitive synth-pop ("Beyond The Darkness").
You might think such an expansive and unpredictable approach would make for disjointed listening, but This Is Always Where You've Lived is very consistent in terms of its emotional tenor. From beginning to end, the record is awash in moodiness. On both "Glint And Glow" and "Have You Heard About This House?" Martin's thin and hollow voice (though nearly indecipherable) conveys genuine loss and resignation. Like a faded memory teetering on the verge of dissolution, he sounds as if he could cease to exist at any moment. These emotions are also present on the tracks without vocals. In fact, the most forlorn-sounding moments arrive with the three instrumentals closing the album. "Last Town" and "Deleted Hill" are melancholic, yet no less ingenious marriages of tape manipulation and ragged American avant-folk. The title track, meanwhile, unleashes hard-brooding, noise-rock scum. So yeah, we're talking hardcore zone-out for grey sky gloom and country road desolation.
Tracklist01. Summer Wheels
02. Silvering the Wing
03. Form Me
04. Flashback
05. Remarkable Fluids
06. Beyond the Darkness
07. Dream Scrape
08. Glint and Glow
09. Have You Heard About This House?
10. Last Town
11. Deleted Hill
12. This Is Always Where You’ve Lived