- Grief, catharsis and healing define this stunning part-ambient, part-noise, part-techno piece from the Oakland musician.
- Sharmi Basu is no stranger to guiding people through trauma. As an organizer and certified mediator in Oakland, they've worked for years in mutual aid spaces to bring resources to the Bay Area's queer and trans BIPOC community. Embedded in their work is an understanding that we view survival all wrong: rather than powering through it alone, confronting and processing pain should be a collective effort. It's much easier to heal alongside others who are trying to do the same.
With Beast Nest, Basu's performance alias, they sort through the tangled wires of sequencers and mixers to create connections. More than just threading musical ideas together, Basu works to link sound to community, understanding that shared experiences help create a stronger emotional vocabulary. With Sicko, Beast Nest offers up a beautiful and disarming electronic album that feels like a wise articulation of the healing process. Its squelching synths and off-kilter rhythms make for an intense listen, equal parts beautiful and vicious, colorful and raw as a fading bruise.
Even at its harshest, Sicko stays warm and inviting. Basu imparts this music with an empathetic sweetness—there's never a moment designed to put distance between you and them. Instead, the album feels vivacious, as if you're in the room witnessing its creation. "Kim, People Are Dying" embodies this sense of presence. Despite the dissonant FM sequence and frantic drum pattern, Basu guides the listener through the maelstrom with a lilting major key drone. Each song features multiple opportunities to foster connection, whether in the form of a human voice peeking through searing distortion or a danceable beat beneath the chaotic swirl.
Perhaps most importantly, Sicko plays as one continuous piece, mimicking the ways that trauma can upend daily life, sometimes wholly enveloping or periodically intruding. In every case, it's disorienting, and it can tar otherwise beautiful moments. On "Frog," a sample resembling a guttural wail bursts into the mix, interrupting a pleasantly looping chord. The track isn't exactly calm, but the mesmerizing churn of percussion and drone nearly become hypnotic, knocked out of place every so often by a discordant yelp.
Other tracks highlight how Basu's work as a mediator influences Beast Nest, identifying moments of chaos and conflict while guiding them towards resolution. "Jsun" assembles an array of arrhymthic drums and sample-and-hold bleeps. It wanders through the start of many musical ideas without letting them follow their course, coalescing into a tempest of noise before collapsing into a peaceful field recording of a forest. The screams of "Frog" appear again near the end of the closer, "Ur Doing Great Sweaty," which keeps its harshest elements simmering below the pulse of its shoegazy Detroit techno. Basu skillfully intertwines tension and release, making clear that neither can exist without the other.
Sicko is an overwhelming and cathartic record, harrowing in a way that leaves you breathless, yet it's tender in its tactics. Ultimately, this is a record about resilience in the face of trauma rather than a testament to its destructive force. Basu's stated goal with their work is "to cultivate a sense of vulnerability and empowerment for themselves and their community" and Sicko feels like the perfect vehicle. Beast Nest looks toward the challenges of our existence with love, understanding that no one survives left alone in the dark.
Tracklist01. Relief/Refuge
02. Jsun
03. Kim, People Are Dying
04. Into The Tangerine
05. Frog
06. Ur Doing Great Sweaty