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Bay Area based experimental producer Kush Arora aka Only Now & guitarist Peter Arensdorf (King Woman) aka Beneath The Ruins convene for their debut EP 'Anamnesis', a work of Badlands atmospherics, infernal electronics, & resonant West Coast blues ruination.
The product of contrasting ideas & components, this first Only Now & Beneath The Ruins collaboration is nevertheless a coalition where parallel worlds meet. Compiled from recording sessions captured at the homes of Arora & Arensdorf in 2019 & 2020, they indicate the development of a symbiotic creative partnership.
Here, Arensdorf’s intimate guitar meditations are framed by Arora’s seismic, cavernous treatments, evoking the open landscapes & haunting liminality of the desert ghost towns found in the duo’s home state of California. There are traces of Dylan Carlson & Earth’s searing drone odysseys as well as Robert Rich’s high-resolution soundscapes, reflecting a uniquely Pacific Northwest milieu. Yet even if the imprints of this lineage are present & correct, Arora & Arensdorf have their own distant horizons in mind.
In a convergence of miasmic ambient, atonal dub & abstract, existential Americana, Only Now & Beneath The Ruins outlay an exchange of sonorous fretwork, broiling feedback & thunderous sub-bass across seven tracks, depicting a sparse canvas of solitude & wilderness.
Powerful & apocalyptic in tone, Only Now & Beneath The Ruins conceive a series of blasted transmissions from peripheral frontiers. A melancholic, revisionist Spaghetti Western for end times.
RIYL Earth, Jon Collin & Demdike Stare, Bill Orcutt, Robert Rich
The first single 'Mine of Memories' is out February 19th
'Anamnesis' is released March 12th
Tracklist
1. Showdown
2. Destiny
3. Tomb Sweeper
4. Mine of Memories
5. Ghost Town Drift
6. Temple of Regret
7. Illusion
Recorded between 2019 - 2020 in the San Francisco Bay Area
Mixed by Kush Arora & passed to renowned engineer & producer Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Wreck & Reference, Oathbreaker) at the Atomic Garden recording studios for the final touches
Only Now is the vision of Kush Arora, based in Berkeley, California, a project that addresses themes of time, existence, & the beyond. His sound is an unremitting emission of razor-sharp up-tempo rhythms, deep space isolationist electronics & primal channellings.
Only Now has released material on Infinite Machine (Mexico), Discrepant (Lisbon), & Polaar Sounds (France), and has performed at MUTEK, alongside the likes of Equiknoxx & Kode9.
'Anamnesis' by Only Now & Beneath The Ruins is the first release in a year of diverse, prolific output, including upcoming tracks on Hakuna Kulala (offshoot of Ugandan label Nyege Nyege Tapes) & 'riddim production' for Bokeh Versions (Bristol)
Kush has been producing under his own name for nineteen years, blending Indo-Caribbean sounds with singular interpretations of dancehall, dub, & industrial, collaborating with the likes of Gappy Ranks & appearing on labels such as Dutty Artz
Beneath the Ruins is the solo project of guitarist & bassist Peter Arensdorf. Arensdorf is based in the Bay Area and draws musical influence from disparate sources, with an unrelenting quest for new sounds and textures. Along with his collaborative works he also plays and writes for the doom band King Woman (Relapse Records)
Arensdorf has graced the stages of Roadburn & Pop Montreal, and has toured with acts such as Russian Circles and Oathbreaker. His upbringing and influences range from traditional guitar innovators like John Fahey, to the experimental works of Glenn Branca and Sonic Youth, to the hypnotic writings of Dylan Carlson and Earth.
- Genre
- DesertGaze