Stefan Neville of Pumice wrangled this latest single from It Hurts for Soft Abuse which embraces the same rejected traditional recording methods he's been exploring since the early '90s. The three ladies of It Hurts aren't strangers to musical creation though and have played in numerous bands over the years in New Zealand probably crossing paths with Stefan which led to this single from Minneapolis's equivalent to Flying Nun: Soft Abuse.
A-Side's "33 Tears" reminds me of the damaged home recorded sounds of Grouper; thumping room bounced kicks, impossibly echo'd vocals and a bellowing synth or actual horn instrument. The capture of a repeated unintelligible vocal in a psychedelic seance in the middle of the night. They weren't even sure what was going to happen next and an epic dark monster came shedding it's hairy skin. No one was planning necessarily on this horror sound, but the trance has begun, there's no stopping this momentum channeling something folky and ancient like those kids from The Land Of Blood and Sunshine, or close to Racoo-oo-oon and Pocahaunted's improvised drone. (I always think I'm missing something in Best Coast because of that project with Amanda of NNF.) Anyone that started out in those hopeless sounding nefarious loops for what must have been discerning audiences has my vote. It Hurts is working in that similar weird contemporary ambience that doesn't have anything to do with electronics just a state of altered mind without directly referencing psych either.
B-Side's "Earth, Sun, Moon, Us" has a creepy whispered theremin or Moog that whooooOOPSS around their space. You can hear the literal room they played this live as another instrument, the rest are separated into channels where left speaker takes a turn into eccentric sci-fi. The rhythm picks up, a tribal stompy metronome hammering this riff over and over. You're listening for the number of times you thought it changed. Battering vocals that pile up on all three members contributing to this in a weird choir of voices, a Grass Widow cabal. Distorted of course, like a Blanche Blanche Blanche Halloween night looking to get more complex and explore a haze of late night ear splitting repetition. Inca Ore, Clipd Beaks, Heavy Winged... here's our new friend, It Hurts.
What the hell is happening on that cover? Butterfly wings, oysters, silver dentures? Lots more dental jewelry to be found on their facebook page.
Pick this up from Soft Abuse Records.
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