EXP
Debut (Hollows Hill)
by Angela Dauthi
I’ve been sitting in my room, thinking “The Goth Scene needs a swift kick in the ass. There needs to be more variety in songs, and less ripping off of Middle Eastern music, industrial, and metal,” but it seems that EXP has already beaten me to it. From the very first notes of Debut, the feel is nightmarishly original. Discordant melodies over rhythms that trip over themselves, a clarinet or some other reeded instrument blowing strange figures over clashing sounds, like a carnival in Hell. The second song, “The Cannibal Banquets,” brings in vocals, a distant spoken word artist who sounds vaguely like Simon Bonney, singer for Crime and the City Solution. Keyboards stutter on a single note, while the percussion slowly builds over a two note bassline, bringing along with it tortured saxophone and a woman’s voice. Jarboe? No, there is no other Jarboe. But it’s close. “Alligator Pears” incorporates a sample from a horror movie soundtrack over a slow jazz shuffle, with a wandering flute adding fear, a sense of being stalked. “The Respectable Gentleman” is simply a mass of high-pitched noise looped constantly with free-jazz reeds on top. Underneath is indiscernible dialogue and no rhythm. It just slides along on its slick hulking mass, not giving you any foothold on the music. EXP must stand for “experimental,” with this being the most obvious reason why. No following of convention here. The sounds are fresh and unstable from the Neubauten-esque metal on metal drumming and scraping to the haunting ocarina. “The Brummel Hare” brings in some guitar feedback noise, like a slowed down Hendrix inferno that slowly breaks down into rhythms of some sort, saxophone going wild, guitar entering with high frequency buzzing. I wonder: Is all this improvised? Debut has an incredibly fresh feel, like those that appeared the very first time they recorded the track.
Gone are the expectations of any typical formats, and with them, the normal classifications of Goth music. Is it still Goth? The string sounds make me think so, definitely minor, almost Twin Peaks-ish, as does the sampled dialogue of what appears to be someone trying to get an O.D. victim into consciousness and mobility. There’s an unlisted track (boy, that threw me off!) that bubbles up from underneath, a short interlude of disturbing weirdness that soon launches into a more conventional (ha!) `song’ called “Sabbath.” I heard something like this by them on Cleopatra’s Gothik compilation, but this, uh, `version’ sounds more polished, more complete. A bass loops and whorls through the songs while the drummer settles into a more or less straight groove, and distorted vocals are presented. There are even discernible verses and choruses. Amazing how, after an absence of usual forms, the reintroduction takes them into a whole new light. “Jackal” introduces a familiar (and quite Gothic) piano, but soon turns into a graveyard waltz with female vocals. The voice goes completely atonal at times, but it’s certainly intentional. It’s sparse, evocative, and scary. “Sanson’s Seraglio” is a dirge with a blend of strange keyboard sounds and a duet between the man and the woman with plodding drums holding it all firmly in the soil. An out of tune guitar picks up the rhythm, and a ranting preacher storms and rages over Armageddon feedback, finally fading out into nothingness. The CD ends with “Ne Me Quitte Pas,” a French soundtrack adaptation which would be sweet if the chords used weren’t so innately horrific. If you want to hear something completely new, and downright scary, I’d advise looking into EXP. Finally, something new.
