Premiere! Thomas Rakowitz: “The Illusion”

This is the first time in a while I wished I had access to Myspace-esque autoplay functionality so I could just play the “This is a woooooooorld premiere” sample from “i” over and over while you read this. Go here and just listen to the first eight seconds a few times.

I’m beyond thrilled that I get to be the one to deliver the first single from Thomas Rakowitz’s album The Musings of Balance. Longtime readers will know that I discovered Rakowitz as a featured artist on Brian Altano’s Misanthrope and became enthralled with his guitar work, noting that it completely changed the sonic landscape in which Altano could play around and made for an even better experience. Rakowitz has released a couple of albums and a steady stream of one-off tracks since then, showcasing that he hasn’t lost a step and is (somehow) getting better and more adventurous with each release.

Which leads us to “The Illusion,” an early look at what’s to come on The Musings of Balance. This track is one to keep you on your toes as it moves along. The beginning seems liked it’s setting up for a prog track, with a drum and riff combo that gave me flashes of Coheed and Cambria’s “Time Consumer.” This little theme continues, adding in a loose-sounding bass, slapping every note to give it a bit of jangle to go with some fat low-end texture. Rakowitz’s layered vocals add an air of something impending coming just behind the next chord progression.

And when that finally arrives in the chorus, we get something that takes the familiar groove that Rakowitz has been playing with and completely transforms it into a blast of chords, familiar enough to be a stepping stone from what was built up before but adding a new kick to the track as a whole. Combine that with a brief solo to rise above the sludgy riffs before plunging back down into a heavy outro and you’ve got a recipe for a roller coaster ride that knows just how to play on your expectations without giving you too much time to rest. You can check out “The Illusion” below and check back here in a few days for a full review of The Musings of Balance before it’s released on March 16th.

Tuesday Two Step: Thomas Rakowitz

With all the hip-hop and indie coverage over here at Irrational Confidence, it may surprise you to learn that I consider myself a bit of a metalhead as well. Mastodon is probably in my top ten bands of all time and I’ve really enjoyed seeing what acts like Deafheaven and Pallbearer are doing for their various sub-genres.(I’ll scream about Deafheaven’s Sunbather for approximately forever. Shoegaze-ish instrumentals with blastbeats and black metal vocals. Tell me that’s not great.) So when I got my hands on Thomas Rakowitz’s Ghosts of Myself EP, I was excited to put it on expecting some shreddy goodness.

You might remember Rakowitz as one of my favorite parts of Brian Altano’s Misanthrope. His guitar work was a great added texture to the dystopian electro-hip-hop of the rest of Misanthrope. When I first pushed play on the EP, I was taken aback just a bit. What I knew of Rakowitz’s work was either from Misanthrope or his bombastic shred work from his YouTube channel, such as this awesome cover of the theme from the Black Knight 2000 pinball machine. I was prepared to get my teeth kicked in by the powers of rock, dang it! But what followed instead was the beginning of the title track, an almost proto-flamenco with an ethereal choir backing the guitar. It was, at the risk of being a little too on the nose given the title, haunting. I felt like this was the wide sweeping shot at the beginning of the horror movie, as the scene gets set for what’s about to happen.

And then we shred. Oh, do we shred! Immediately we’re joined by some breakbeats, some super crunchy chords and some riffs that come in with the desire to say that we’re getting straight to the point. Rakowitz even comes in with vocals, something I didn’t expect from him, and the rawness present in his voice as he swaps between clean and growled vocals adds to the emotion of the track. Rakowitz had made reference on Twitter about this EP being a personal, almost therapeutic project and in his vocals I could almost hear him screaming out his demons one by one.

There’s almost no time to rest in this short EP. There’s only five tracks plus the awesome bonus instrumental “Elements,” another departure from the rest of the EP and a soothing recovery from the rest of the project. From start to finish I get what I expected from Thomas Rakowitz: some technically impressive metal that feels like it wants to destroy me (The solo on “The Consuming Flame” is the best example to point to in this case) but the album really shines when it shows off the versatility of the artist. The introductions on both “Ghosts of Myself” and “Whispered Nightmares” are enough of a shift that I perked up and paid attention and when the metal kicked back up to 11, it felt like a release. I was ready for it again. These moments of tension, waiting for everything to blow up are what make the Ghosts of Myself EP special. You can pick up Ghosts of Myself for the low price of $2 over at Thomas Rakowitz’s Bandcamp page and hear a demo version of “The Consuming Flame” below.