- Gripping, nocturnal synth and guitar experiments from crucial Cleveland underground musician Noah Depew.
- When Cleveland's Noah Depew dropped his Peculiar Refractions in the Fullness of Time tape on unifactor last year, it seemed to reach only the small-scale Substack newsletters and far-out foraging tape bloggers at spots like Tabs Out. But to those discerning listeners, it was clear that something strange yet compelling was once again brewing in the murky waters of Lake Erie.
To the extent that people are familiar with Depew, it's more likely with his solo work as a noise artist on underground labels like No Rent, or shredding guitars in various underground punk, psychedelic and improvisational combinations, ranging from emerging hardcore outfit Piss Me Off to the self-proclaimed "heavy kosmische" of Swisher. But when Covid-19 canceled the live gigs that were the center of his work as an improviser, Depew picked up a few more synths and decided to try making music in the style of the '70s experimental groups like Zeit-era Tangerine Dream and Chrome, both of whom worked heavily with tape collage effects and whose work Depew has long been obsessed with.
As a Cleveland-based musician, Depew suffers the fate faced by artists here for ages: to work tirelessly in your local scene creating brilliant work and almost never receive any recognition for it. Or pioneering new forms without ever recording an album—just playing live to a handful of witnesses and leaving behind legendary bootlegs. The name of the project itself is a half-joking callback to the Cleveland underground of the '60s and '70s, an era in which the Mr. Stress Blues Band featured prominently. Depew also draws inspiration from the local DIY tape label scene of ten to 15 years ago that turned out crucial experimental electronic music explorers like Emeralds. He tries to operate his Metaphysical Barbeque label in the same vein: as organically as possible.
Where Peculiar Refractions in the Fullness of Time was a more emotionally fraught and introspective listen—almost like you're deep in the night, intoxicated, processing the comedown—Spiritual Latency is more on the morning after "fuck it" tip, letting go and getting weird, allowing for things to be unresolved. The title reflects Depew's practice of sitting for 12 hours with these loops, letting them go and not recording a take until hour 11, before putting it away and forgetting about it for long periods of time. The loops perform a therapeutic and meditative function where Depew claws towards some form of actualization, but his discordant guitar playing communicates the dissonance involved.
Together, these elements explore the tension between the life and death of the party and the struggle to maintain your inner world or actualize anything in the increasingly chaotic American psychic landscape. There's a lot more guitar on this tape, so the dissonance is perhaps more present than ever, and it's a lot more forward in the mix. This one even features some prepared acoustic guitar with heavy effects buried in the soundscape, but it sounds like a synth—part of Depew's commitment to involving new processes in every subsequent release.
Depew sounds more self-aware and more at ease with the tensions of his life and his artistic practice on Spiritual Latency. He's on the edge of something, doing this spiritual thing, but it's not paying off yet—there's this horrible delay to the work and to any reward for having done it. The fact that he named the album after the process of making it suggests Depew is an artist who is moving closer to both himself and his practices, and that the actualization is finally happening, despite the dissonance.
Tracklist01. Amethyst Loser
02. E.T. Water Cooler III
03. Stagnant Water Rock
04. Intoxicating Atmosphere
05. Second Sky
06. Vague Streams Of Light
07. Spiritual Latency
08. Kneeling In The Rain