Despite their name spelling the Hebrew word for ‘drug’ (‘sam’), Samechmem cannot be described according to the journalistic paradigm that posits band x on drug y as the future sound of anything. Drugs would be too disorientating to allow for the kind of technical rhythms they insist on producing manually, despite having at their disposal the technology to make them digitally. At the end of the industrial age, Throbbing Gristle suggested that we needed to find a way to dance to the Tesco Disco. Samechmem continue the post industrial project by drawing their drones not from a mystical beyond, but from the inaudible hum of mobile phone masts and fibre optic cables. Rumours of the elaborate diagrams they employ in their lengthy composition sessions have abounded. But there is nothing spurious about the way in which their sound transcribes pictorial forms into tonal frequencies, borrowing from the Brechtian structures of Baptist hape note singing, which designates the names of notes as they are being emitted. That the religion to which Samechmem’s music corresponds has yet to congregate should by no means be an obstacle to total devotion.
No comments:
Post a Comment