Spectreview: Golden Flavored Champagne Sweatshirt – Expectant

Released: November 20, 2020

Electronic
(Experimental)
(Ambient)
(Noise/Industrial)

-DODGER BLUE-

For a guide to the review color rating system, click here.

The siren call of a sawtooth wave. The clang of synthesized metal. The primordial placation of rain on brine. Waves of whale song piercing the ears. The satisfied snort of a pig in muck. Terrified screams.

Golden Flavored Champagne Sweatshirt’s new record, like so many great boundary-breaking sonic works, says a great deal with a careful fusion of sounds. Yet it’d be foolish to claim it’s simply a response to recent catastrophes, despite knowing titles like “3.26_”. 2020 might have been one of the most traumatizing years in recent history for American Black people in particular, but those traumas have roots dating back decades, even centuries. Albums like Expectant, with its distinctly misanthropic POV and pointed discord, speak to ancient queries still ignored, often aimed less at sophistic resolution than release.

For a record so steeped in industrial clamor, Expectant holds a surprisingly accessibility. Its harshest moments come right before its softest for maximum provocation. The terrifying dogma of “Whicket” leads into the subaquatic splendor of “Sea Creatures,” while the predator/prey dynamic of “Animals Calling Animals” leaves a harrowing mark as it abruptly cuts into silence. In other places, her confident merging of ambience and noise forms the volcanic island of “Pyroclasmic Flows” which, along with “Sea Creatures,” forms a benevolent shelter from the grinding assault of “Horse Mouth” and the descending madness of “Human Animal Chimera”. Noise music has an automatic hurdle to jump from the get go, but it’s to GFCS’ credit as a sonic architect that Expectant commands a full, deep dive into its most nightmarish corners.

Recommended for water on concrete.