Finally, we welcome Nihilist to the Cerberus fold, and what better artist to bring this union about than Brett Naucke, an experimental musician with a handful of releases to his name on labels like Arbor and Catholic Tapes, but no deluge by any means. The Visitor charts artists like Nihilist’s Andy Ortmann and Ben Vida on its way to celestial bliss, also retaining a healthy respect for pitch bends and synths that drip like liquid mercury. I used to imagine music like this sitting at my dad’s synths (a temporary fascination for him when I was like 12), and here it is, crystalline and delicate as the finest china. That’s “Sun Room,” anyway. Other portals lead to tunnels full of crickets and fast-scattering crabs, flapping wings, ominous thumps, croaking blobs of sound, and more of that sweet liquidity. At his best, Naucke structures his compositions as one would a drone, yet imbues them with lots of little fragments rather than an overarching throb. At his worst he obsesses over clankery more than necessary. There are far worse sins to commit, and the former far eclipses the latter, so seek this out. I would say you gotta get high to listen to this shit, but The Visitor might just take you there on its own. Drucq fugs.
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