Revolts against the music industry have lost on the immediacy front, both regarding the speed at which music is made and how quickly it worms itself into your brain, and AI is the culprit. Rallying cries must now be unpredictable and not generalizable. Experimental, haphazard, off-putting, and stream-of-consciousness are traits that generative AI cannot co-opt into its sphere. Last year, Kayo Dot attacked the issue with their spell-binding, improvisational mumblings of Every Rock, Every Half-Truth Under Reason. I mention Kayo Dot to highlight the different angles one can adopt for this problem, as A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers’ new EP, Towers of Silence, which we’re premiering today ahead of its release this Friday, is the diametrical opposite of mumbling or spellbinding. It’s brash and free from organized thought, including those that dictate cowardly concepts like “music scales” and “song structures.” Listen to it below.
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All that being said, and in spite of how the Dutch group regularly improvises on their debut EP, Towers of Silence has a skeletal system that connects all the moving pieces. The system differs from track to track, but there’s enough of a rhythmic floor to gain your footing. “I Fuck People” is purely expressive music that’s as much sludge metal as it is free jazz, with the former’s tepid tempo making it easier to follow along. By contrast, “Towers of Silence” is transcendental, more in line with a ritual than a doom metal song. The EP as a whole can only come from frustration and frayed nerves overdosed on outrage porn, its form intentionally undefinable as a means of resistance, which is why the title track is key to Towers of Silence. The anger and confusion must plant itself somewhere if they’re to be fruitful in any sense, and “Towers of Silence” is that fertile ground. Let’s see Claude try to replicate it.
The band comments:
While recording Towers of Silence, we attempted to invent our very own, new approach to extreme, yet emotionally charged music. We tried to free ourselves from the usual constraints that are so commonplace in the genre, and instead incorporated extended techniques, improvisation and uncommon instruments. The result might be a somewhat challenging listen at times, but it’s rewarding and honest nonetheless. In times when AI basically rids the need for anyone to create generic, overproduced music, we feel that the future of countercultural music lies in the raw, unfiltered and authentic.
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Towers of Silence releases May 9 via Lay Bare Recordings.
