Winkie - self released single

A few months ago I went out to Cameo gallery to catch Kam Kama play and the Brooklyn husband and wife duo, Winkie happened to headline lit by a video projector. I ended up talking to pTER after the show who gave me their single and after yesterday's duo Industrial Park I had to pull this single out of the pile to compare. They both share not only a similar creepy vibe but the same guy/girl makeup, in Winkie's case, pTER's on bass with Gina on synth.

"My Eyes Are Closed When the Sun Comes Up" opens on a heavy Cure style chorus effect from pTER which has always been a weird sound to have associated with this dark, oppressive sound. Crisp metronome drums pound back and forth under this airy melody running into itself, the added swishy phaser rips that layered sound up into a rolling haze of what used to be bass at this point. Gina leans on the lower end synth parts hollowing out a massive low end cavern that can only be captured on the vinyl medium, rumbling under the surface. Shrieking higher end synth comes in between Gina's breathy high register vocal that shouldn't be this graceful alongside their dark world. They also hit on this rhythm and repeat a melody structure to spiral it into the center of the earth. Both of them essentially working bass parts...why not take that rhythm section used in most bands as the structure to hang everything else on and make it the pure skeleton for naked minimal electronics.
B-Side's "Always to be Around" opens on crunchy looped bass, spiking in the red, peaking into the effect it came out of. Percussion toms pound rising into a heavy, heartbeat loop. The bass is folded over on it's slightly off chord structures, the melody is a bit warped with what must be a higher end guitar distortion at work on this one. It's all adding up to a scratchier static filled vision of Industrial Park's nod to shoegaze. Gina's vocal is completely buried and like any successful somber stuff it's not another instrument, the lyric really can function to just set the mood, all distorted and a sort of mirage in the distance. I have no idea what Blank Dogs were talking about half the time but that never stopped me from singing along. They insist on mailing that Lust for Youth damaged sound first, you'll have to pile the context on yourself, it's better that way.

This one is on black vinyl with spray painted sleeves from the band direct.