“Why am I afraid of my own thoughts?”
After a mental breakdown, Kyle Bates of Portland, Oregon’s Drowse found himself heavily medicated, only for the anxiety to resurface years after kicking the pills. This is the mold that “Quickening” — along with the rest of his and creative partner Maya Stoner’s upcoming album, Cold Air — has grown from. It would be an injustice to call this shoegaze or, on the other side of the spectrum, post-punk. There’s just too much polluted air, too much rot and bacteria to appropriately compartmentalize it into a genre. Instead, let’s go with a feeling: uncertainty.
“Why am I afraid?”
“Quickening,” isn’t quick. But it’s not slow either. It’s both in front of and behind itself. The distortion reverberates off the frigid wooden floors and filthy windows, rolling through thin hallways, only to die in the back bedroom. The house is most certainly old, maybe even rundown. There’s static on the television. Who forgot to pay the cable bill? It’s cold. Who forgot to pay the heating bill? Is it still a home if you can’t fall asleep there?
“Why am I afraid of my own thoughts?”
Listen to “Quickening,” below, and stay tuned for the rest of Drowse’s LP, Cold Air, due out March 9 via The Flenser.
Cold Air tracklisting:
01. Small Sleep
02. Quickening
03. (Body)
04. Rain Leak
05. Klonopin
06. (Bedroom)
07. Death Thought
08. Two Faces
09. Put Me to Sleep
10. Knowing
11. (Person)
12. Shower
More about: Drowse
