Wreck And Reference

Wreck And Reference

Absolute Still Life

Flenser

Absolute Still Life is the fourth full-length album by the experimental duo Wreck And Reference. The album marks a radical departure from the band’s heavy and noise rock origins and finds them driving toward a more electronic and abstract dimension. Like past albums, warped synthesizers and pillaged samples build up the harmonic elements of the songs, but the absence of acoustic drums gives this release a colder, more alien aesthetic. With fewer screams and stranger textures than before, the band find themselves alone again in uncharted and uncategorizable territory. The album cover depicts a sickly still life in which edible and inedible elements mix in an unnatural and unappetizing collage of bright colors. The title reflects the absurdist version of reality that one find oneself in, unable to escape. To date, Wreck And Reference have released four EPs and three full-length albums. Their first work, an EP titled Black Cassette, showcased distorted fragments and synthesizers in angular, heavy songs, with themes of determinism and Cormac McCarthy-esque isolation. Their debut full-length No Youth (2012) and their sophomore release Want (2014), described by Pitchfork as having “radical vision” and “boundless experimentation,” represented dramatic expansions of their sonic palette. In 2016, the band released their third album, Indifferent Rivers Romance End, perfecting their song craft and pushing their noisy, sample-based instrumentation to its limits.

Wreck And Reference

Indifferent Rivers Romance End

Flenser

Titled Indifferent Rivers Romance End, the cover of Wreck and Reference’s newest album depicts a statue of pre-socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus tied to a brick and drowned in a river of liquor and dirt. Heraclitus, “the weeping philosopher,” found comfort in the uniformity of the world's chaos. Wreck and Reference is not at home in genre conventions; relying on computers, acoustic drums, and voice the band has found an audience with the heavier crowd and fans of the experimental.   Indifferent Rivers Romance End is a winding composition of ballads that interrogate the endurance of purpose, love, and change set against a backdrop of disillusionment draining into nihilism. The album sees Wreck and Reference employ the clarity of IDM and the rhythmic flood of trap as an experiment in pop, metal, and noise. Like all Wreck and Reference albums, Indifferent Rivers Romance End was self-recorded, but this time with increased use of digital synthesizers in lieu of samples, creating a greater sense of fluidity and movement. In contrast to past work, Indifferent Rivers Romance End is an album that allows the possibility of change, even the necessity of it, when the self comes to face the inevitability of continued life amidst the construction and destruction of relationships.   Originally formed in 2011 by multi-instrumentalists Ignat Frege and Felix Skinner, Wreck and Reference use computers, drums, and vocals to create a sound that is eccentric, captivating, and often unnerving. That same year, the band recorded their first EP, Black...