Lighght - The Skin Falls Off The Body

  • Thrilling experimental club music inspired by the human body.
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  • You'd be forgiven for mistaking the title and track names on The Skin Falls Off The Body for death metal or goregrind. And really, it almost as intense as those styles. On his brief but excoriating Dream Catalogue debut,the Irish artist Lighght uses IDM's tools to make music that feels visceral, violent and volatile. He wields noise and withholds rhythm to get across the chaos of the human body, like an inverse of Matthew Herbert's landmark Bodily Functions album, where bodily sounds were formed into warm deep house. The five freeform tracks here form a sort of suite, all using the same sounds: a metallic shwing that could be blades rubbing against each other, bone-dry kick drums, jagged chunks of breaks and uneasy pads. The drums come in uneven blasts on tracks like "Hang Nail" and "Skin Peel"—every time you think you've discerned a pattern, they disappear or morph into something uglier. Most things are transient on The Skin Falls Off The Body, an intentionally confusing experience that climaxes on "Massive Blood Loss Into Scab," where sounds and ideas collect and evaporate like blood pooling and drying. These tracks hint at the limits of the body, where pain can only last so long before the whole thing gives way. The end of the EP offers some relief. On "The Soul Emerges Like A Moth From A Cocoon," bright pads offer light at the end of the tunnel, while the closing "Angel Flesh" generates a broken drum pattern that almost reasserts control. That moment of head-nodding rhythm is cathartic after the chaos of the preceding ten minutes, a satisfying end to a difficult but thrilling EP.
  • Tracklist
      01. Hang Nail 02. Skin Peel 03. Massive Blood Loss Into Scab 04. The Soul Emerges Like A Moth From A Cocoon 05. Angel Flesh
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