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Wet Nurse – V A S E S


Canadian noise/dark electronics project Wet Nurse just released V A S E S, and it’s making me uneasy in the best kind of way. I hadn’t felt this unnerved since the Noisefest last year, and it’s all thanks to the masterful mix of sound manipulations and creepy vocals present here.
Disturbed lyrics speaking of drugs, sex, depression and depravity are common in the noise genres, but they’re not so “in your face” as say Whitehouse or other power electronics groups would present them. Instead they feel composed, deliberate, and they mesh well with the disturbances underneath. Alabama poet Matt Finney is responsible for these words, and he knows how to get me going when it comes to grime and filthy ambiance.
The album seems to get more intense as it goes in, with V A S E S being so calm it almost doesn’t fit in with the others. There’s almost a duality going on with the soft-spoken vocals during the first track and the distorted anger in the second half of the last song. The music itself actually has more structure than a noise piece would, as the deliberate vocals would imply, as there are beats throughout the record. They’re distorted and reverbed, but they’re there, and they give you something to hang on to while trying to figure out where the song’s going.
The textures were varied and dynamic, and very obviously worked upon. The fizzes, hisses, filthy basses and ominous progressions all added up to create some anxiety-inducing moments, and the use of actual notes and chords was welcome. Wet Nurse knows how to keep a song interesting and unpredictable while maintaining musicality and structure, which isn’t something many can do. This obviously isn’t a complaint towards more noise-oriented acts, Wet Nurse just actually writes good songs.

Even if you’re not into electronics or noise, with a certain frame of mind one could still get into this album, by virtue of its doom/drone-like qualities. Overall this is an excellent piece of claustrophobic work which I’ll be listening to for quite a while.



Giuseppe Fitzsimmons
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