Screature

Screature

Four Columns

S-s Records

Screature’s second album Four Columns opens with shimmering guitar and incantation... and then it flies. Chris Orr’s atmospheric guitar is a cool companion to Liz Mahoney’s haunting vocals; Sarah Scherer’s keys swirl to Miranda Vera’s insistent beat; it’s all brought to now by Chris Woodhouse’s excellent production. Call it dark psychedelia or post-punk black, Screature’s Four Columns is a creeping zodiac of sound. Screature came to life in 2008, in a dark corner of Sacramento, California. They spent three years making music in secret, wintering to Rudimentary Peni and Chrome, summering to Music Machine and PiL. In 2011, they played their first show, with Death Grips. And then hit the stage with White Lung, Chain & the Gang, Wounded Lion, Milk Music, TV Ghost and others. 2013 saw their debut LP flash through the sky (now back in print on S-S Records). D. Yudt called it the “feel-bad record of the year.” It landed in Chelsea Wolfe’s Pitchfork year-end “Best Of.” As good as the self-titled Screature is, Four Columns is better. The songs “Down Boys,” “Half Past Midnight,” and “Lost Ones” are already live hits; on record they rule other worlds. From front to back, Four Columns intoxicates.

Screature

S/t

S-s Records

California’s Central Valley is a hot, dry place, with a series of small towns pretending to be cities. At the heart of the valley is Sacramento, the perfect place for a Screature to form. Born in 2008, the group spent its first three years in a woodshed. Chilled by winter winds and warped by summer heat, haunted by Rudimentary Peni, The Scientists, and the Music Machine, Screature emerged with psychedelic visions, a dark sense of humor and one hell of a howl. In 2013, the band self-released their first album. Produced by Chris Woodhouse (A-Frames, Oh Sees, etc.), Screature lurked around the edges of the post-punk / indie world. “Female-led Sacramento post-punk, AnGuLaR, and meticulously crafted” is what Urban Kill wrote about it when they heard it. Impose compared vocalist Liz Mahoney to Grace Slick and Karen O, while noting that Christopher Orr’s guitar “reduced the sound to esoteric transmissions.” Screature’s debut landed on a few 2013 lists—often as a “Hey hey! Why isn’t anyone on this?”—including Chelsea Wolfe’s “Best Of” in Pitchfork. Sam Lefebvre of the East Bay Express slotted it in his “Top Five Albums of the Year,” while Dennis Yudt called it “The feel-bad record of the year” (Sacramento News & Review). The album eventually creeped to black, but rather than letting it lie dead, S-S Records approached the band about keeping it in print. So, like all good stories, Screature rises from the dead for a second life. This S-S edition is a modest pressing of...