Almost one year after their recent feature here on IDIOTEQ, noise rock infused post hardcore band ABANDONCY are back with their new split with Italian noisy punks NORSE (also featured on IDIOTEQ back in 2020).
Blending experimental and post punk moods with a distorted, feedback-laden guitar riffs, both bands arrive in with a frenetic energy, driving their songs forward with a pounding intensity and almost eerie atmosphere. The vocals are raw, aching, and powerful, delivering the lyrics with a sense of urgency and emotion characteristic for screamo bands, building to a climax with layers of abrasive noise and a wall of sound that is both chaotic and exhilarating.
Today, we’re giving you the full stream of this amazing collaboration, along with a special commentary from bands, touching on various aspects on each of their songs.
The split comes out on January 6th in 300 copies 10″ vinyl (200 black + 100 orange marble) thanks to the help of Kono Dischi Records, Shove Records, Long Rail Records, Vina Records, Tenzenmen Records and New Knee Records.
“Colpevole” and “Complice” by NORSE have been recorded in October 2021 at nostudiorec. in Biella by Andrea Bertoli and Salvatore Aricò, mixed by Salvatore Aricò and mastered by Johnathan Nuñez at Sound Artillery Studio, Miami. Solina and MS-20 on “Colpevole”: Andrea Bertoli. Sax on “Complice”: Mattia Rodighiero. Abandoncy’s side was recorded December 2020 by Morgan Reed Greenwood at Swan Lake. Mixed by Morgan. Produced by Abandoncy.
Abandoncy – ‘Machine organism’
LINC – Machine Organism is a play on “machine life form” from Nier: Automata. The distinction being the machines are not only machines, but living things with conscious. They live to fight, but have nothing to fight for, causing an existential dilemma.
DAME – This song was the first we wrote after “Hollow//Living” stuff, with “it’sallfun…” being the second. Definitely our shortest song and somehow the easiest to fuck up. The guitar riff is probably a bad attempt at writing a U Sco riff, if I’m lying correctly. The lyrics took a lot of drafts but “over Judas’ sirens” is an image I think about still. Whenever we tracked the vocals, the intro has just so many versions of me, and I just was not prepared to qualify.
MORG – Fun little drum intro. Easy to fuck up, though. I love the opening guitar riff–if you slow the vinyl down to 33rpm it sounds like a finger style country lick. The song clocks in at 1 min 30 seconds of us playing our instruments which, I think, makes it the shortest song we’ve written…
Abandoncy – it’sallfunandgamesuntilimakemyselfcry
MORG – …which is funny because this one is probably our most broad song. Not our longest, but our most patient and stays the longest within a single musical space. This i think accents the subject matter of the song and juxtaposes nicely with the brevity of the previous song. It’s great to finally have this split come together after so long. We recorded our songs December 2020 so it’s been a long process getting everything together. Much love to Norse, they’ve been very sweet in our communications and very easy to work with.
DAME – Longest song title, longest individual sections, longest I’ve ever had to push air out of my mouth. But the big riff demands what the big riff demands. I’m not sure of how the whole song came together anymore. I am sure I referenced how the word “I” is used, what “I” refers to, what we could know when we use “I” – big nerd shit. I play with “I”-uses and other indexicals because they don’t necessarily refer to the same person over time, even if it’s “me” referring to “me.”
NORSE
The two songs from our split’s side were written and arranged during 2021 and both are heavily influenced by post-punk music.
In the intro of “colpevole” this effect is particularly noticeable, with a Solina and a MS-20 both played by our friend and comrade Andrea Bertoli.
The song is based on a single and simple chords progression rearranged in different ways. We were binging on Disappear at that time so we think there was some of that mixed with our usual noisy sound. The lyrics are about the guilt you feel because of your own wrong decisions and realizing that this feeds a vicious cycle: wrongs in the past will make one scared of the choices they make in the present and their repercussions in the future. Ah, there’s also Ted Kaczynski in there.
The second track “complice” revolves around an arpeggio that, during the song, destructures itself till the suspended outro under the weight of the bariton saxophone played by our brother Mattia Rodighiero.
We were swayed by the post punk wave here too, especially in the guitar timbre and the noise rock rhythmic tension. For some reason our minds make a connection with the Italian band Verdena when we think about this song.
The saxophone in the end is for us one of the most rappresentative part of our intention: antagonisticic, urgent, sincere.
Lyrics are about complicity intended as sharing pain and what the lack of this means.
Both songs were recorded in October 2021 in an analog way on an Otari MS-90 24 channels at nostudiorec, in Biella, a studio built by our collective Kono Dischi.
