The seedy, pollen-crusted Memphis metropolitan area stretches for mile after shady mile, concealing altars to the Christian faith, ducking under swaths of bone-dry concrete overpass, traversing multiple comma-levels of income in one block.
From the Yellow Fever scare of the early 20th century, straight on through the appropriation of trap into “cloud rap,” Memphis music has always been religiously preoccupied with the sense of futility that often haunts quiet, simple towns caught between the pressure to progress and the ragged Southern heat. Bored Lord started out making tunes that plugged the Dirty South’s trapping, hustling heritage in to the bandwidth-swapping orgy that is Post-Interweb Earth. The tongue in cheek aesthetic drew my attention, but they formula seemed incomplete until B Lord attempted a more human approach to electronic beats through the blues. Many of the songs off Omens & Sigils are slow-pouring, mush mouth dirges, and “I Get No Rest” recalls a paranoid Gorillaz suffering from sunstroke, or the divebar gospel of an aging Yung Thug, all gums.
• Bored Lord: https://soundcloud.com/boredlord
• Sturm und Klang Records: http://sturmundklang-records.com