Penance Stare
Solanaceae
(CVC011)
Limited Edition cassette and digital download
Crow Versus Crow is honoured to be able to present, Solanaceae, the second full-length record from Penance Stare, the Gateshead (UK)-based project of songwriter Esmé Louise Newman. Following the much-lauded Scrying (2018) and House of Bastet EP (2017) cassettes, this bleak and haunted recording captures Penance Stare at its most fully-realised thus far.
Previously known for her work in Melting, Commiserations, and Etai Keshiki, among many others, Esmé has spent the last two years deep in sonic exploration, developing an incredibly rich sound that, “whips together atmospheric black metal with darkwave, shoegaze, stormy ambient, and witch house… as soothing as it is intense” (Kim Kelly, Noisey).
Beautifully mastered by Stephen Bishop (Opal Tapes, Basic House, Drunk in Hell), Solanaceae deals lyrically with themes of trauma, illness, ageing, neglect and regret, and is rendered with a sonic palette of heavy drum machine rhythms, degraded chamber music passages, low fidelity guitar fuzz and blurred out vocals.
With blatant disregard for the oft-perceived sanctity of aesthetic dogma, Penance Stare draws voraciously from a wealth of seemingly disparate musical sources, twisting the gothic ephemeral grandeur of Cocteau Twins, the blunt mass of industrial noise, the layered textural intricacy of ‘Loveless’ and the raw, razor thin brutality of contemporary Black Metal, to form distinctly articulate works of personal expression.
Solanaceae is released as a limited edition of 50 hand-numbered, on-body printed aged bronzed cassettes, housed in a heavyweight recycled card sleeve with full-colour artwork by Crow Versus Crow. A digital download is also available.
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Tape £6 / Digital £4
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