SUMAC will be performing at Meow Wolf Denver in The Perplexiplex this Friday, August 2. They will be performing alongside Portrayer of Guilt and Trigger Object.
The doors open at 7:00 p.m. and the show will begin at 8:00 p.m. This marks an exciting foray into heavy music, following on the heals of Melt-Banana playing the same spot.
Get tickets here.
SUMAC’s guitarist and vocalist, Aaron Turner talks May You Be Held:
“As an artist in this time of significant upheaval, society seemingly having reached the end of its current iteration, it’s of critical importance to absorb and interpret this process of dissolution and of the transformation that hopefully follows it. While I don’t believe we’re on the brink of collective destruction precisely now, this is clearly a pivotal stage in the story of humankind, and there is something that feels right about this music at this exact and very uncertain moment.”
May You Be Held is SUMAC’s latest album that picked up where the band left off in 2018 on Love in Shadow. With Love in Shadow, they pushed further into the extreme polarity of their sound with a collection of long-form composition and free-form exploration.
SUMAC have created a sound that is both meticulously detailed and complex one moment and rudimentary and repetitive the next, all whilst being completely untethered and unscripted at seemingly random intervals. Their work has always been about transition between different states of being. Our sense of normal and not knowing what comes next is one of thebigger fundamental aspects and themes of May You Be Held.
While records in the past have concentrated efforts churning out in short flurries of activity, May You Be Held, is a record that came from out of the blue. It was pieced togeether from vestiges of the Love in Shadow session with Kurt Ballou at the Robert Lang Studio in Shorline, WA, a session at The Unknown in Anacrotes with Matt Bayles and the supplementary work at House of Low Culture on Vashon Island in the Puget Sound.
Stream SUMAC on Bandcamp here.
Hailing from Austin, TX, Portrayer of Guilt spew out unpredictability. They have been releasing material at a rapid pace since their formation six years ago. Since then, it’s next to impossible to predict when their next music drop will sound like. The only bit of information about what to expect is the titles that bathe in themes of affliction, isolation and allusion of the underworld.
From their multitude of sound-shifts over the course of many immediate releases, including 2021’s widely acclaimed “CHRISTFUCKER,” Portrayal of Guilt have transformed from masters of traditional 90s screamo act into a more blackened and sludgy metal outfit.
Heading into a wide spectrum of influences, Devil Music, has been tracked into two different sessions during the early months of 2022 as an experimental approach to writing heavy music. The first session offers five original tracks on Side A and the re-imagined version on Side B.
Stream Devil Music here.
Veronica “Vern” Avola, better known as Trigger Object, is a composer and a multimedia artist. They were born in Italy and are currently based in Oregon. They spearhead EMS Records as a sanctuary for their unconventional and peculiar sounds, mostly in the form of limited run cassettes and compact discs, whilst also releasing albums under other labels such as Sige Records and An out Recordings.
In addition to their solo endeavors, Vern is a member of the Australian band Dead, as well as a collaborator with many other artists such as Bear Spray and Elrond. They are also a founding member of Prize Hog (2006-2015) and a long-time member of Shrew Florist (2005-2012).
Their live performances are celebrated for their unconventional charm and have graced stages on a global scale. Their music has been described as “wonderfully crunchy and kinetic” as well as “electronic music that combines wall noise iwth a delirious Amanita Muscaria-soaked sense of dynamics.”
Stream Trigger Object on Bandcamp here.
Photo courtesy of SUMAC
