CONFUSION: ANDY WINTER AND WHISPERED

It’s the middle of a Saturday morning here in the great Pacific Northwest. I woke up much later than usual, in a state of confusion. This was the result of a very late Friday night, not enough sleep, and the after-effects of mixing intoxicants. I do not regret any of that — I saw one hell of a live show in Seattle last night by Abigail Williams (with the new line-up of Ken Sorceron, Jeff Wilson, John Porada, and Charlie Fell) and Erimha. But still, my head hasn’t been firing on all cylinders this morning.

And then I saw and heard the two things you’re about to see and hear. I’m now even more confused — but I’m coming around to the view that it’s a pleasant kind of confusion, sort of like waking up in someone else’s pants and realizing they’re nicer than the ones you were wearing the night before. Not that I did that. Just a figure of speech.

ANDY WINTER

I came across this first video through the following post by my beloved Agalloch on their Facebook page: “A video from our friend Andy Winter. This track features Agalloch members: JWW (bass), Anderson (guest gtr solo). Also features Jan Axel Blomberg/Hellhammer (drums), Mirai Kawashima (vocals) and Winter on guitar.” The video premiered 10 days ago on Stereogum, and there’s a lot more info about Winter at that Stereogum link.

The song is “Uncountably Infinite,” and it appears to be a new single; Winter’s last album was 2013’s Incomprehensible. Almost everything about the video (and the music) is incomprehensible. There is so much whatthefuckedness in them that, unlike oil, we can now safely say that we will never run out of whatthefuckedness.

The video stars burlesque dancer Tristan Risk, and like Stereogum, I think it’s prudent for me to include a NSFW warning, even though there’s not any actual nudity in it. The weirdest thing about the music is the warbling of Mirai Kawashima (from Sigh, by the way). But for reasons that are inexplicable at the moment, the song is growing on me.

https://www.facebook.com/andy.winter.official

 

 

 

WHISPERED

While on the subject of confusion, consider this: a band who play that distinctively Finnish, galloping, keyboard-enhanced brand of melodeath, but with Japanese melodies and the incorporation of Eastern instruments. I know, right? What the fuck?

Yesterday one of our patrons (Brimberloo) sent me a link to one of this band’s new songs by the name of “Lady of the Wind”. It appears on Whispered’s appropriately named 2013 album, Shogunate Macabre, which is now being peddled by Amazon mp3, iTunes, and other digital retailers and is also available on CD here. As a fan of bands such as Tzun Tzu and Tengger Cavalry, I was ready for this, even though I was initially surprised and confused, never having heard anything by Whispered before.

Rather than attempt to provide any further description of the music, I’m just going to embed the lyric video for “Lady of the Wind”, plus a previously released video for “Jikininki”. I’m sure at least some of you know all about this band already, but for me it has proven to be a very pleasant, if confusing, discovery.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Whispered/152411565720