WRECHE
There’s nothing here but heat and dust, dust and light, time and space—no great upheaval beyond the mute accumulation of aeons, no setback beyond the routine catastrophe of morning sunrise. Daylight sears and returns every speck of rock and sand, every pore and follicle of human pride and daily grime, each miserable stick of charred inedible plant life back to the perfect sterility of lunar space. What passion could be conceived here, what sin, what germ? In the shade it’s 129 degrees. On the asphalt it’s 180. In such climate the body can lose a gallon of water in just a few hours. As the brain begins to coagulate it envisions water everywhere. Across the road, the dead lattice of the dwarf trees twists, blurs and pulses like seaweed inhaling the crests of coastal waves. The undulating layers of fossilized strata stain the cliffs with the leak and drip of virgin springs. The highway mirage ripples cold with alpine refreshment. The pale granite domes high above the scrub pines scream of melting snow. The coyote rotting off the roadside reeks of healing sulfur hot springs. Water— the last thing you’ll find and the only thing you need.
Artwork by Max Moriyama & Athena Wisotsky
SOME SAY...
"Indeed, the inspiration that Morgan clearly pulls from classical music runs much deeper than merely surface level, and a great deal of the success of his compositions is the care taken to marry the most applicable elements of black metal and solo piano classical music in order to effectively unite two genres that are antithetical in many regards.[...] As an introduction to their stylings, Wreche is a phenomenal debut that delves into uncharted territory more so than perhaps any other record I’ve heard this year, whilst yielding absolutely flooring results in the process." - Diamond in the Groove
"These collisions of sound and style, and the interplay between piano and drums, prove to be immersive over the length of the album precisely because they’re so unusual, so well-conceived, so fascinating, and performed with such remarkable virtuosity." - No Clean Singing
"OK this one's a real mindfuck. They're a two-piece from LA, and they play artsy black metal with a major twist: they have a pianist instead of a guitarist. Yup, it's drums, piano, and vox. They're both insanely talented, though, and the pianist's playing is classically-influenced and extremely dissonant, in a way that's in line with French-style orthodox black metal." - Opium Hum (best list 2017)
"I keep saying this, but I'll say it again: for those willing to step over boundaries, black metal is the genre most ripe for innovation. There are some that will argue that BM should remain kvlt and retread familiar ground for all eternity, but I can think of nothing less counterculture and "black metal" than towing such a line. Enter Wreche. Not only is this band willing to abandon convention, they abandon guitar altogether. With only the power of John's classical piano performance and righteous howls backed by Barrett's powerful drumming, Wreche proves that ravishing grimness has little to do with distortion." - Metal Trenches (best of 2017)
"Wreche sublimates their vision of music to offer us a first album of colossal quality. A fantastic masterpiece." - Heidnir Webzine
"With the album of the same name, WRECHE succeeds in creating a musically and conceptually outstanding, completely independent black metal work of art. Intense volume, samples, booming, drums and emotional vocals initially fly around as hard-to-identify particles in a wild storm. You cover your ears and close your eyes. If you manage to stay, you will recognize the disturbing melodies to which the particles constantly rearrange like a swaying flock of birds chasing insects." - Stormbringer | Austria
"Wreche are British, which means they probably have some type of sense of humor." - dead rehetoric
VESSEL | a film by Zack Kasten & Handsmade [OAK, CA]
"Vessel, the film you are about to see, is a journey through a surrealistic dreamscape, a shifting montage of odd characters transforming themselves and moving through light and shade, in isolation and shoulder to shoulder with more “average” citizens who seem to take no notice of the quirky beings in their midst. It is a strange and unsettling vision, and a transfixing one (make sure you have 19 minutes to spare, because once you begin you’re not going anywhere else).
Welcome to Los Angeles.
Oh yes, as arresting and hallucinatory as these changing frames are, they are a portrayal of the City of Angels, a portrayal that seems at once a documentation of real-world oddities and also a metaphor for so much of what the city is all about, a place where anything can happen, a place that induces you to believe you can become anything you want but often mutates the transformation you seek into something much worse than you ever imagined." - No Clean Singing | film premiere