Down the Wire: Terrence Dixon and King Women
Terrence Dixon: Reporting From Detroit
by Howard Cressi-Stallworth
Amidst stuttering rhythms and pure electronic sounds, Terrence Dixon connects to us once again from his hometown of Detroit. Reporting From Detroit released recently continues Dixon’s electronic fusion of classic Detroit techno-isms with his own brand of clean cut synthesized sounds infused with meditations on melancholy and forward thinking moods. Dixon lives up to his reputation by delivering an album based more on unease and layering excitement piece by piece.
When compared to his native peers DJ Kern and Drexcyia , Dixon was morphed in a similar spirit within the classic inclinations and love for a specific brand of electronic music. Dixon is always willing to keep a steadfast foot in one door and continue down a path with another. He and his peers are willing to stay put within their roles and grow within them as they age, quite the goal for acts based within a certain style born of electro music that often lends itself to be retro.
Terrence Dixon has never been afraid to embellish parts of his music or past and his staunch and stubborn love for instruments like that Roland MC-303 make that all the more clear. His stand-by choice of cut and dry electronics mirrors the affectations of his city but does not limit it at all even throughout its repetition. His music is elevated due to its repetition, a necessary element of the music often subtly warped by it’s layers and tracks that are themselves morphed as the tracks go on. It’s kick drums, hand claps, and stock sounds are welcome here by their creator as each track inhabits a similar yet distinct mood.
Dixon continues to pay homage to his hometown musically and culturally via his production style and flag waving identifiers for the city. On 7 Mile All Night, he drops us right into the heart of the city with a sleek tunnel vision-like tune including a vocal sample and keyboard pad that drop in and out allowing the song to ebb and flow. The vocal sample says “in Detroit” over a floating static chord and unchanging hi hat and kick. The sputtering arpeggiator repeats like gravel bumps under a car's tires on that same 7 mile right outside the city.
Wasting no time nor delay Beautiful Jerusalem keeps the tempo going with out of the box drum hits, chrome clean hand claps and syn drum hits. It’s this style of electro techno that Dixon is letting us know still goes strong throughout and for his hometown. Amidst ray synths that shower throughout the track, the melodic intentions of the album flow more from it’s pulsating rhythms and dynamic progressions rather than keyboard melody lines or pure vocal samples. It’s this contrast of heavy repetition and layering of musical parts that puts Dixon apart from his more melodic counterparts creating a distinct notion of mood music than simple songs.
Resolution follows the first track with a deep vocal sample against a booming kick and simple clap. “I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m gonna do my best” is what it says over and over as if one is experiencing these same thoughts over some patch of road ever contemplating their city. Drum machines enter over a shifting arpeggiator line and cutoff swept synth lines like lights on a highway. 8th Chance continues this motion over a funky, somewhat obtuse line over foggy chords before Dexter and Joy At Night remind us to keep up the pace over the course of the album. This ultimately culminates in the neighborhood silver shining title track with in your face hi-hats and hand claps keeping such a consistent pace there’s no way one would forget where you are or what you’re about to do.
Ending the album is Star Garden, a slightly unnerving beatless piece capping a rather uptempo album. It's a reminder that it’s never the goal of electronic music to stay static nor capitalize on one movement or moments. The album is abrupt in what it chooses to embellish in terms of tempo choice and musical patterns and the ending track makes that more apparent. These aren’t natural stars, they are lamp posts, aircraft warning lights, and satellites all congealed together creating a certain unease and distinct notification that you are here without natural light in this city over and over. You can choose to embrace its realities or deny it.
King Women - Celestial Blues
by Minimal
For the last ten or so years, it's been common for bands and musicians from the heavier, more abrasive spectrum of music - metal, hardcore punk, and the like - to make a play for broader attention in the music landscape by incorporating what amounts to musical catnip for your average twentysomething music enthusiast. I'm talking about shoegaze, dream pop, and post-rock. I don't think it's a stretch to say that the typical aesthetics of metal do not sell for your general "indie" music publications without drawing from the emotional and intellectual pretensions afforded by the three genres above. Call it cultural elitism, but I have the feeling that many fans seriously engaged with metal scenes are more than happy to perpetuate that divide - think of it as a badge of honor, an affirmation of identity: "we're nothing like those pretentious assholes". The braindead drama in 2013 over Deafheaven and “hipster black metal” at large was nothing but another dust-up within this frame. The media and critics were able to walk away with the feeling of championing a new, progressive strain of metal (where progressive really means: progress towards their own sensibilities), and the KVLT wildmen reaffirmed their own outsider status. Nevermind that the actual music was more conservative than actually advertised, or that more significant strides within black metal were made by “hipster” Liturgy in Aesthetica than any other artist.
King Woman’s Celestial Blues falls into this recent strain of metal with a softer touch. This much could be assumed through examining the relationship spiderweb of frontwoman Kristina Esfandiari: one-time singer of Whirr, whose bandmate (Nick Bassett) has played in both Deafheaven and Nothing. But just in case you’ve missed the connections, the album’s press release makes sure to note that Deafheaven producer Jack Shirley is behind the boards for this one. Still tapping into her rocky relationship with her parents and Christianity, Celestial Blues builds its lyrics out of biblical grist with references to Paradise Lost, the crucifixion of Jesus, and other such theological matters that are ever so common to metal songwriting. The difference here is the music attempts to reach for a level of intimacy, beckoning you closer with breathy vocals and a cavernous sonic space. Even the heavy lyrical matter is explored not through abstractions and petty philosophizing, but interpersonal relationships. Naturally the relationships are filled with nasty psychic sludge and heartbreak, what with this being a doom metal record, but the result is something more romantic and gothic in nature—”Entwined” is really just a big sappy love song, both “Boghz” and “Ruse” are all about toxic breakups, and closer “Paradise Lost” is the exile from Eden as a delicate folk song that could be found on an early Chelsea Wolfe record.
So goes the lyrics, but what about the music? If you’re like me, listening to metal—any kind of metal—is all about hearing something heavy as hell and, if possible, emotionally unsettling. Unbelievably, the production is neutered compared to their earlier work.The general sound is deadened compared to 2017’s Created in the Image of Suffering, and in what I imagine is an effort to chase after the muted fuzz of latter-day shoegaze, the guitars simply don’t bite. I grant that it comes off as a cliche—to imagine a metalhead sneering “not heavy enough”—but it’s a serious fault here: if the songs are to be constructed from sparse, reverb laden passages, the payoff ought to be drones that positively crush. As it stands, the instrumentation of Celestial Blues is a mostly dreary affair of post-rock brooding with peaks that fail to differentiate themselves from what precedes. A consequence of the slow tempo and spaciousness is that it heightens Esfandiari to the emotive centerpiece of every song. This much is acknowledged by Shirley’s mix, which pushes her voice to the front. It’s a wise move since Esfandiari can sound legitimately haunting, but many of the performances she brings exacerbate just how tepid the music can be. Her default style of singing is both wounded and consciously anemic—you’re more likely to hear her whisper, moan, or if the pace manages to be brisk, verge on a kind of liturgical chant that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Billie Eilish track. Combined with a lyrical tendency to lean on repetition, songs like “Morning Star”, “Golgotha”, and “Entwined” leave me feeling slightly sad and mostly bored.
To Kristina Esfandiari’s credit, Celestial Blues does take a step forward with the introduction of more guttural yells—the kind you feel in the pit of your stomach—and unhinged screams. Acting as palette cleanser, the two shortest pieces on the album both follow after the longest tracks and build entirely around this ferocious new energy. “Coil” matches snarls about resurrection and vengeance with propulsive, rolling drums and a wonderfully sludgy bass; “Psychic Wound” builds a classic doom metal soup of anxiety around a traumatic, submissive relationship, ending with layers of Esfandiari going absolutely apeshit. It’s these raw moments, sprinkled throughout the album and fully formed in these two songs, where the album is at its finest, where the despondency is dropped and the music is willing to engage with me. Even “Bogzh” with its length and pacing is worthwhile if only because it shows an interest in cultivating something other than a vague sense of wistful reflection—that it’s a sense of lip-curling dread and contempt is marvelous.
The issue at large is that with this record, King Woman committed to the recent blending of metal and indie. Contrary to what dogmatic metalheads insist, it’s not that the combination is bastardized metal or impure (whatever that means)—it’s that the move is just so easy. For better or worse, we live in a post-Sunbather world, and while metal has long incorporated expansive elements or focused on atmosphere, I’d argue that it’s never been more in vogue. Celestial Blues may find more time with people due to its gothic flavor, but frankly there’s nothing that distinguishes it from the others riding this wave. Hell, some of them even have more energy. If you really want the kind of experience this album suggests, listen to it’s perfected version on Chelsea Wolfe’s Hiss Spun instead.