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The Desire To Be At Home Vol. 4: A Nostalgic Youth

by Esme Kenna

/
1.
Bastard Parent 02:04
2.
In A Puddle Of Piss 02:28
3.
Saw The Skull Split In Two 02:10
4.
If Only I Could Go Back 02:16

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Don't Go Outside

With each of these four volumes of Esme Kenna's The Desire To Be At Home series, the artist has chosen to work backwards. She began with full and heavy black metal, closest to what purists wanted, and on each subsequent record she's removed instruments and stripped the music more and more bare. She didn't want to expand on a sound and instead focused on the emotions. Her impressionist version of black metal went from Water Lilies to a monochrome nightmare. On this fourth volume shes all but removed everything but guitar and drums. There's a strange beauty in how straight forward and simple these tracks are. No filter or frills, nothing to hide the cracks or make it any more listenable. Kenna made a record that proved that time makes sense when you work in reverse.
There are elements of math rock and power pop, though they are completely mangled beyond all comprehension. The simplicity of childhood through the eyes of an angry black metal artist. You throw up on and shit yourself but you also don't know or care which way is up. It's all about your lack of function and limits of anger. Only when the rage turns into nostalgia does it become potent and dangerous. The record is a lofi mess that sounds haphazardly put together, but the way it's composed shows a deliberate effort to replicate a certain vibe of discomfort. At the end of The Desire To Be At Home series, Kenna has found peace in simplicity.
Collective Ego Death will miss this series greatly. A real artist working totally outside the boundaries of what a genre normal sounds like. She pummeled and plastered her way into a sound that is entirely her own, and then proceeded to destroy what she had build with each record. She pushed metal into nothingness and whatever she makes will undoubtedly be next level. But till then, revel in these four albums and let it inspire new ways of approaching sound.

credits

released January 15, 2021

Esme Kenna - Guitar, Drums, Mixing, Mastering

Sidious Mittens - Artwork, Design

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Collective Ego Death Portland, Oregon

Collective Ego Death is a label dedicated to finding and preserving lost classics and releasing divergent artist's work.

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