(written by Islander)
We’re about to take you off of most (but not all) of our well-beaten musical paths through a track that deploys sonic ingredients we don’t often display but which shares a certain evil kinship with some of the more deranged expressions of extreme metal we focus on.
This track, “VOID_//EXE“, is the work of Above & Below, which is the Industrial solo project of Ohio-based Bryce Seditz, who’s better known to our visitors for his roles in Plaguewielder and Horse Drawn, and we’re presenting it through a visualizer video that’s the work of Mourning Shroud (another one of Bryce’s endeavors).
Folks with functioning memories may recall that in 2022 we premiered Above & Below’s debut album Suffer Decay Alone, which was released by Jeff Wilson’s Disorder Recordings. Bryce has told us this about the current activities of Above & Beyond and “VOID_//EXE“, which is the first single from an album named NIHIL//__CODE that will be completed and released sometime next year:
Just looking forward to releasing more experimental music, not really knowing where it’s gonna land. Very inspired by past drug use experiences. The picture of the album is from the Moundsville penitentiary in Moundsville, West Virginia. Which is an old prison that was built in 1886 and decommissioned in 1995. It’s one of the most haunted locations in America.
“VOID_//EXE” is itself pretty damned spooky, good mood music for the impending Halloween night. As far as we know, it’s entirely instrumental, but some of the electronics sound like a crocodilian fiend rhythmically snarling as it’s being strangled. Other electronic ingredients include deep throbbing beats and quick percussive smashes, weirdly warbling vibrations and strange bird-like squeaks.
After a sudden pause, haunted-house organ tones begin to lurch above the low-end rumbles, the cracking percussive slashes, those ugly strangled emissions, and the assorted other electronic lunacies.
Part cybernetic dysphoria, part demonic dementia, part ghostly processional, “VOID_//EXE” will keep the annoying trick-or-treaters away from your door if you put it on a loop.
To keep up with the activities of Above & Below, follow the project through the links below.
https://www.instagram.com/above_and_below666
https://www.facebook.com/Aboveandbelow666/