AN NCS PREMIERE: BODIES ON EVEREST — “TALLY OF SEVENS”

 

Bodies On Everest are a trio of noisemongers who come from Liverpool and Manchester. They wield two bass guitars, drums, and assorted implements of electronic torture; their voices are also weapons. They describe their music as “Dungeon Wave” — “a caustic mix of drone, doom, noise and cursed psyche-sludge”, as their labels would say. Their new album is A National Day of Mourning, “a funeral dirge for modern life”. It is dedicated to:

“…a car park in Sarasota FL / a wall in Harrisburg, PA / a chlorine tank / A photograph of a fishing net / A fire extinguisher / A lawyer at a railway station / a section of the pacific ocean near the coast of Chile…”

The album is also described by the band as “the very urgent and desperate result of an accident.”  “Welcome to Hell,” they say, and it is an apt greeting they give us.

“Tally of  Sevens” is the second single to be presented from the album, which will be released in its entirety by Third I Rex and Cruel Nature Recordings on April 29th. The band have written some words about the song (or perhaps these words are in the song), which are no less cryptic than the others we’ve already quoted:

 

photo by Robin Hill

 

“Buried in latex with a slingblade in parallel positions either side of a porcelain fountain / ‘Put on your marijuana coats, boys!’ / his jaw arrived two minutes before his arms came to execute us/”

I don’t pretend to know what those words mean, but upon reflection, there are aspects of this track that bring to mind thoughts of suffocation, burial, wicked knives, fractured jaws, being high as hell, standing witness to executions without end.

There’s a bit of an intro to the song, just enough of one to begin disorienting your thoughts, and then the gates of Hell come open. Massive, grotesquely distorted bass guitar excretions and black noise join together with drum strikes to produce the sensations of a pneumatic demolition machine, one dedicated to devouring buildings and excreting mountainous piles of rubble in its wake. The vocals are equally distorted, and authentically psychotic. The combined effect is abrasive, punishing, but head-nodding.

A shriek of feedback signals some kind of change as the band approach the halfway point of this ruinous trek. A rhythm persists; deep tones pulsate; cacophonous waves of noise come and go; and then the band resume their murderous ministrations in a new repeating sequence of rumbling, pounding, and scarring, a sequence capable of inducing convulsive movement despite how corrosive it is. There’s no mercy in the ending either.

 

 

A few more words from the band, connected to the album:

“an accident is just that. an accident is fleeting. Sometimes an accident has intent. Repeated through history with context abandoned, and sliced down to the result, straight to the impact. My grief becomes a public display of death made physical, and that personal, ton weight is now the punchline. To see it in action forever? a grief that never goes away. But, as long as you’re OK with yourself, right?”

 

A National Day Of Mourning was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Jacobia Stig at Dumbulls Studio in Liverpool. It will be pressed by Third I Rex on CD format and Cruel Nature Recordings in a limited double pink cassette edition, and made available digitally as well.

Below you’ll find pre-order links, and a video for the album’s first single, “Who Killed Yale Gracey“, which premiered at The Obelisk, as well as our own presentation of “Tally of Sevens“.

BODIES ON EVEREST are:
Baynes – Bass, Electronics, Vocals
Wàrs – Bass, Electronics, Vocals
Gold – Drums, Electronics, Vocals

Pre-order:
https://3rdirex.bandcamp.com/album/a-national-day-of-mourning

Cruel Nature Recordings:
https://cruelnaturerecordings.bandcamp.com

Bodies On Everest:
http://www.bodiesoneverest.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/bodiesoneverestband/