God Tongue
Liminal
self-released
God Tongue is a new project out of the Pacific Northwest featuring a familiar-face; the duo is made up of Isku Katerwold of Total Chroma and Wire Spine, and vocalist Camille. The music on their debut album Liminal exists between the grit and grime of synthpunk, and mutant body music sounds, the songs hard-edged and only as adorned as they need to be to get themselves across. It’s a deliberately rough and ready approach that keeps things moving forward and the energy unsettled and slightly unnerving.
While it’s tempting to talk about these songs as being minimal, perhaps a better descriptor is lean; there’s nothing small about the detuned, seasick synths of “Stress”, nor reserved about the contemptuous way Camille spits out the song’s refrain (“I’m that bitch/that gets you stressed”), the wide open space around each element making each kick impactful as it lands, each wormy synthline seem sharper and more perturbing. The denser “Delete It” has two basslines fighting for control of the song’s rhythm, with a disaffected vocal crushed between them, the air pushed out of the mix so that each reverberating snare hit feels like it’s miles away from the fracas.
It’s certainly a record that makes use of abrupt change-ups and swerves both small and large to keep the listener on their toes, but there’s also a number of solid, and practically straightforward (albeit still gnarly) tunes that could light up an adventurous dancefloor. Of particular note is the record’s closer “Panic”, whose straightforward hook is both the bassline and the chorus’ vocal melody, its snappy bounce complimented by a downright ugly lead synth patch that sounds like an organ wheezing out its final breaths. Alternately “Rotten” takes a classic EBM-styled approach and runs with it rhythmically, its bassline rolling up and downhill, threatening to stop entirely before dropping into half time for its last strides towards the finish line.
Where all the detuned wandering oscillators, cheap and cheerful drum sounds and shrouds of delay and reverb certainly make Liminal a certain murkiness, it’s got a particular vitality thrumming through it that keeps it tied together. At just a few minutes over the twenty minute mark, its eccentricities never become burdensome to keep up with, and in fact become its strongest feature; where you might latch onto a melody here or a bassline there, God Tongue make more than a few left-of-centre choices that keep you guessing and second-guessing where it’s all going.
