Street Sects

Last updated

Street Sects
Origin Austin, Texas, U.S.
Genres
Years active2013–present
Labels The Flenser
Members
  • Leo Ashline
  • Shaun Ringsmuth
Past members
  • Michael Lauden
Website streetsects.bandcamp.com

Street Sects is an American experimental band from Austin, Texas formed in 2013, composed of vocalist Leo Ashline and multi-instrumentalist Shaun Ringsmuth. Their style is extremely abrasive, characterised by industrial rhythms, use of screamed vocals, samples of both noise and synthesizers, and nihilistic lyrics. Following two EPs released in 2014, the duo's debut album End Position was released in 2016 on The Flenser to generally positive reviews.

Contents

History

In 2013, in the wake of struggling with addiction for thirteen years, vocalist Leo Ashline formed Street Sects with his friend, multi-instrumentalist Shaun Ringsmuth, in order to produce extreme, experimental music addressing the negative aspects of life. [1] In 2014, they self-released the first two EPs for the planned Gentrification: A Serial Album pentalogy: The Morning After the Night We Raped Death (February 4) and Broken Windows, Sunken Ceilings (July 15). On November 18 they also released the song "Things Will Be Better in California" which is a composition built from Spill/Fill, a collection of samples by Wreck and Reference from their 2014 album Want. All of these works were produced by the duo, mastered by James Plotkin, and illustrated by A.J. Garces Bohmer based on concepts by Ashline. [2]

Street Sects' debut studio album End Position was released on September 16, 2016, through The Flenser to generally positive reviews. It was mixed and mastered by Machines with Magnets in Providence, Rhode Island. [1] The album's title is based on a lyric from I See a Darkness by Will Oldham. [3]

Musical style

On their Bandcamp, Street Sects place their work within the categories of electronic, noise, punk, hardcore, industrial, sample-based, power electronics and rock. [2] Their label, The Flenser, described their music as "a feverish marriage between industrial music and punk rock" ... "utilizing frantic, uncompromising rhythms and a variety of nightmarish samples". [1] Their style was addressed by various critics in reviews of End Position , which were generally positive. Adam Devlin of Tiny Mix Tapes described it as a harsh noise industrial hammer punk album", noting that "Shaun Ringsmuth is an aural sculptor of rare form, mixing industrial rhythms made of machine gun parts and bursting crash cymbals with psychedelic, transgressive melodies of alien origin". [4] Rolling Stone recommended the duo to fans of Big Black, Youth Code and Agoraphobic Nosebleed, describing their music as a "lean, murderous blend of synths, samples, pained vocals and industrial rhythms" featuring "nightmarish noise, punk and industrial punchouts". [3] Tristan Jones of Sputnikmusic wrote: "Street Sects combine dirty synths with traces of noisecore and industrial piss, underscored with thoughts of suicide and misanthropy." [5] Dæv Tremblay of Can This Even Be Called Music? called their music "hardcore plunderphonics". [6] Stephen Proski of New Noise Magazine praised the interplay between Ringsmuth's sophisticated musical structures and Leo Ashline's (screamed) vocals, which he called "intimate and vehement". [7]

Members

Discography

Studio albums
TitleAlbum details
End Position
The Kicking Mule
  • Released: October 26, 2018
  • Label: Flenser Records
  • Formats: CD, LP, digital download, cassette
EPs
Splits
Singles

Related Research Articles

<i>Discovery</i> (Daft Punk album) 2001 studio album by Daft Punk

Discovery is the second studio album by the French electronic music duo Daft Punk, released on 12 March 2001 by Virgin Records. It marked a shift from the Chicago house of their first album, Homework (1997), to a house style more heavily inspired by disco, post-disco, garage house, and R&B. Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk described Discovery as an exploration of song structures, musical forms and childhood nostalgia, compared to the "raw" electronic music of Homework.

<i>VIVIsectVI</i> Album by Skinny Puppy

VIVIsectVI is the fourth studio album by Canadian electro-industrial band Skinny Puppy. It was released on September 12, 1988 through Nettwerk. Despite tackling controversial topics like animal rights, chemical warfare, and environmental waste, VIVIsectVI was well-received. It spawned two singles, "Censor", which was released on the album as "Dogshit", and "Testure", which was Skinny Puppy's only song to chart on Billboard's Dance Club Songs. VIVIsectVI was followed by a theatrically involved tour with Nine Inch Nails as the opening act.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kayo Dot</span> American avant-garde metal band

Kayo Dot is an American avant-garde metal band. Formed in 2003 by Toby Driver after the break-up of Maudlin of the Well, they released their debut album Choirs of the Eye on John Zorn's Tzadik Records that same year. Since then, Kayo Dot's lineup has drastically changed over the years. Toby Driver is the only founding member of the band still remaining, save for frequent lyrical contributions from former motW member Jason Byron. Up until 2011, the lineup was constantly shifting, and Kayo Dot's sound consistently changed over the years, featuring a wide variety of instrumentation including guitar, drums, bass, violin, saxophone, vibraphone, synthesizers, clarinets and flutes. Underground metal audiences warmly received the group upon its early existence, with the 2003 album Choirs of the Eye and the 2006 album Dowsing Anemone with Copper Tongue both becoming underground hits in the progressive metal scene.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vampire Rodents</span> Sound collage from Phoenix, Arizona

Vampire Rodents was a sound collage and experimental music ensemble based out of Phoenix, Arizona, although its core members originally came from Canada. The creative nucleus of the project comprised vocalist and composer Daniel Vahnke and keyboardist Victor Wulf. Daniel Vahnke was primarily influenced by 20th-century classical and avant-garde music, whereas Wulf drew from new age, ambient and synth-driven pop music. Their work also dabbled in big band, bebop, musique concrète, industrial, electro, Indian classical and Greek music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Insomniac Folklore</span> American rock band

Insomniac Folklore is an American rock band from Portland, Oregon. The group is made up of Rev Tyler Hentschel, Adrienne Michelle and Amanda Curry with other members joining them from time to time. Hentschel is the project's only consistent member since he founded the group in 2001.

<i>Deathconsciousness</i> 2008 studio album by Have a Nice Life

Deathconsciousness is the debut studio album by American rock duo Have a Nice Life, released on January 24, 2008 on Enemies List Home Recordings. Recorded independently by the band members on a budget of less than $1,000, Deathconsciousness was released as a double album; the first disc is entitled "The Plow That Broke the Plains" and the second is entitled "The Future". The original cover art features a darkened version of the painting The Death of Marat, painted by Jacques-Louis David in 1793.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Flenser</span> Experimental music record label

The Flenser is an American record label founded by Jonathan Tuite in 2010 from San Francisco, California. It describes itself as a "dark music" label and a "dark experimental record label".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knuckle Puck</span> American rock band

Knuckle Puck is an American rock band, formed in 2010 in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. The group released several EPs, one of which, While I Stay Secluded (2014), peaked at number 5 on the Heatseekers Albums chart. The band released a split EP with the UK band Neck Deep. The group signed to Rise in 2014 and released its debut album, Copacetic, through the label in 2015.

<i>Coffins on Io</i> 2014 studio album by Kayo Dot

Coffins on Io is the seventh studio album by American avant-garde metal band Kayo Dot, released in the UK on August 14, 2014 and in the US on October 13 through experimental metal label The Flenser. It is a follow-up to 2013's Hubardo. It's the first album from Kayo Dot to not be self-released since 2012's Gamma Knife. Coffins on Io marks a notable change in sound. It combines influences of Type O Negative, The Sisters of Mercy, Peter Gabriel, dark wave and other 80s electronic musicians. It combines aspects of electronic music, jazz fusion, post-punk, gothic rock and new wave. It was produced by Toby Driver.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HalfNoise</span> Musical project of Zac Farro

HalfNoise is the musical project of Zac Farro, drummer of the American rock band Paramore. Based in Nashville, Tennessee, Farro formed the project alongside Jason Clark following Farro's departure from Paramore in 2010. The project now consists of Farro alone. He released the debut self-titled EP of the project, HalfNoise, in 2012. Since then, he released four studio albums, Volcano Crowe (2014), Sudden Feeling (2016), Natural Disguise (2019) and Motif (2021) and two EPs The Velvet Face in 2017 and Flowerss in 2018.

Planning for Burial is the musical project of American musician and singer-songwriter Thom Wasluck. Based in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Wasluck started to perform as "Burial" in 2005 and released the debut album, Leaving in 2009. Wasluck plays all instruments during both his home recordings and live performances.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ho99o9</span> American punk rock group

Ho99o9 is an American punk rap group founded in 2012 in Newark, New Jersey by theOGM and Yeti Bones. They relocated to Los Angeles in 2014. They attracted a cult following on account of their live performance and began collaborating with Ian Longwell who plays drums and produces for Santigold. In 2016, former Black Flag member Brandon Pertzborn became the band's drummer but left in 2023 after joining The Offspring as their new drummer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The White Noise</span> American punk rock band

The White Noise was an American punk rock band from Dallas, Texas, later based in Los Angeles, California. Formed in 2010 under the name Set the Sun by guitarist and vocalist David Southern and drummer Alex Summers, the band released two EPs and a series of singles while still based in Dallas. By 2013, Southern was left the sole founding member and recruited vocalist Shawn Walker and guitarist Josh "KJ" Strock. This lineup would relocate to Los Angeles and change their name to the White Noise. In total, the band released three EPs, in addition to one studio album, 2017's AM/PM.

Hardvapour is an Internet-based microgenre of music that emerged in late 2015 as a tongue-in-cheek response to vaporwave, departing from the calm, muzak-sampling capitalist utopia concept of the latter in favor of a gabber- and punk-influenced sound. Canadian music producer Wolfenstein OS X album End of World Rave (2015) and the Antifur record label are credited with having first defined the hardvapour sound. It is also related to vaportrap.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Belmont (band)</span>

Belmont is an American rock band from Chicago, Illinois.

Uniform is an American industrial metal and noise rock band, formed in 2013 in New York City by vocalist Michael Berdan and guitarist Ben Greenberg. The current lineup of the band also features Mike Sharp on drums.

Sean Archibald, also known as Sevish, is a British electronic music composer from London. Described by Aaron Krister Johnson as "a well-known creative force in the world of online microtonal music," he is most known for his compositions which combine aspects of electronic dance music with microtonality. As a child Archibald was inspired by music in video games such as Chrono Trigger, Streets of Rage, and Sonic the Hedgehog. He would then go on to discover microtonality as a teenager by listening to gamelan music and Aphex Twin. At age 16 he began officially releasing music online and released his first solo album at age 20. He first gained notoriety in the microtonal music scene with his 2010 release, Golden Hour. Sevish's 2011 xenharmonic dance album, Subversio, created in collaboration with Tony Dubshot and Jacky Ligon was described by Andrew Hugill as "dub meets microtonal tunings."

<i>Sea of Worry</i> 2019 studio album by Have a Nice Life

Sea of Worry is the third studio album by American band Have a Nice Life, released on November 8, 2019, on the Flenser. It is their first album to feature a full band.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chat Pile</span> American rock band

Chat Pile is an American rock band from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The band is composed of four members using the pseudonyms Raygun Busch (vocals), Luther Manhole (guitar), Stin (bass), and Cap'n Ron (drums). Their debut album God's Country was released on July 29, 2022.

<i>Memorrhage</i> 2023 studio album by Memorrhage

Memorrhage is the eponymous debut studio album by Memorrhage, a nu metal project by American musician Garry Brents. Brents has also made music with the bands Gonemage, Homeskin, Cara Neir, Sallow Moth, and Prabstruse, amongst many others, since 2004. He also collaborated with Vision Eternel between 2010–2012. A variety of styles span these projects, including: black metal, death metal, grindcore, screamo, post-rock, and electronic music.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Street Sects – End Position". The Flenser. July 19, 2016. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
  2. 1 2 "Street Sects". Bandcamp . Retrieved November 2, 2016.
  3. 1 2 "10 New Artists You Need to Know: October 2016". Rolling Stone . October 21, 2016. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
  4. Devlin, Adam. "Street Sects – End Position". Tiny Mix Tapes . Retrieved November 2, 2016.
  5. Jones, Tristan (September 17, 2016). "Street Sects – End Position". Sputnikmusic. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
  6. Tremblay, Dæv (October 29, 2016). "Mini-Reviews XXVII". Can This Even Be Called Music?. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
  7. Proski, Stephen (September 14, 2016). "Album Review: Street Sects – 'End Position'". New Noise Magazine . Retrieved November 2, 2016.