Lee Noble is such a major d00d. For years, Noble has been releasing consistently excellent records full of drone-based bedroom pop experimentation through a myriad of labels — including his own No Kings imprint — and his latest, Ruiner is undeniably among his best work. Ruiner’s nine tracks marry doomy synths/electronics/tape collage to folk-like forms, creating a brooding yet beautiful work of lo-fi isolationism. When listening to Ruiner, I’m often reminded of other isolationist touchstones such as Arthur Russell’s World of Echo, early Smog, Andrew Chalk, and even Grouper’s recent work. While there are musical elements from each of these artists present in Noble’s sound, they’re most unified by mood: Noble’s compositions conjure the same sense of a solitary individual playing into the void.
This feeling of expansive desolation is perfectly captured in the video for Ruiner’s “Wring the Rag.” The track is one of Ruiner’s sparest, and the austere, grainy footage of various landscapes parallels the song’s sonics while providing a representation of the record’s isolated abyss as a whole.
Ruiner is out now via Bathetic Records. You can watch the video for “Wring the Rag” above.
• Lee Noble http://www.leenoble.bandcamp.com
• Bathetic http://www.batheticrecords.com