AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: INELEGANT MASS — “LOWER MYSELF”

Those of you who perused the daily news yesterday (though why would any sane person do that?) would have quickly halted in your tracks upon seeing this headline:

“500-pound mound of pythons found in Florida marsh”

Reading further, you would have found a photo and a description of a discovery made by a team of trackers (e.g., here) — a 7-foot wide mound of Burmese pythons in the midst of mating season.

Of course, it’s mere coincidence that this report surfaced just before our premiere of a song by a band named Inelegant Mass. Or is it?

The Inelegant Mass who made the song you’re about to hear is an experimental doom project formed in 2023 by NYC-based instrumentalist GP, and Chicago-based frontman DG (also of blackened deathgrinders Split Whole.) And what we have for you now is a lyric video for their startling and shattering debut single, “Lower Myself“.

Before delving into the song, we’ll share what each of the two participants has to say about it. First, from instrumentalist GP:

“The entire track started with the vocal sample, pulled from a medieval madrigal, and manipulated through a Monome Norns. The manipulation of that sample felt so violent and creative, destroying the serene, the subsequent reconstruction of it as something wholly different and unrecognizable from its origin, yet still a beautiful thread in its new state. That single element led to the first drum groove, and everything thereafter. I wanted to create a track that consumed the listener, and likewise sounded like the track could consume itself. Something that lumbers towards chaos — pure noise blurring between traditional instruments yet anchored in rhythm.”

And now from vocalist DG:

“It’s basically a man in argument with himself, over why abstaining from the immediate and short-term generators of pleasure is or isn’t worth it for him. Him, here, being me. I have my own history of pacifying or dissociating thru vices, like drugs and alcohol, food, and sex. So, this is just one way for me to deal with that, to process it all. That history, and that unceasing need to undo all progress with one more. Just one more. Regarding Inelegant Mass as a project, I want it as an opportunity to scrape out a piece of my soul. I find that the performative element has a sort of sensorial vibe of being suffocated in burial dirt. Something heavy, depriving me of light and sound and air. A kind of slow, unkind death that doesn’t ever end.”

After reading those two comments, you’re already somewhat prepared for an experience that won’t be anyone’s idea of “easy listening” — and it is indeed distressingly intense, yet it’s also unpredictable and ever-changing.

For example, you probably wouldn’t expect the exotic, wailing, flute-like melody that opens the song, like something brought forward from ancient Sumeria, or the pulsating tribalistic beats that are interspersed with sharp percussive chops. That exotically eerie flavoring never entirely disappears, re-surfacing in shrill tones that glisten in the upper reaches of the music. In the lower reaches, distorted chords slowly heave and scour the senses as the bass brutally moans and disturbing words pour out with raw, larynx-shredding intensity.

The intensity increases when the pacing accelerates, the drums battering, the high-end sounds screaming like a siren, the voice lacerating itself in unhinged screams. Dissonant chords blare, and the music also feverishly jolts, boils like poison over flames, and twitters like whistling bells. By the end, just when you thought the vocals could not sound more violently self-eviscerating, they do, and they make the finale terrifying.

Coming across a mass of giant writhing pythons of exotic origin would probably be terrifying too, but yes, it’s probably — probably — just a coincidence.

Inelegant Mass rightly believes their music will appeal to fans of The Body, Indian, and Primitive Man. This new single was mixed/produced by Alex Brown, and it will be available on all streaming platforms. We can also happily report that the duo are at work on a debut EP slated for late 2024.

BANDCAMP:
https://inelegantmass.bandcamp.com/

INSTAGRAM:
https://www.instagram.com/INELEGANTMASS/