Carol singers in the mosh pit
Deathcore, free jazz, and visions of the void
This week at Public Seminar, our critics offer an antidote to the relentless good cheer of holiday music. Robert Noble celebrates the precocious, death-centric ballads of Indigo de Souza. NJ Smith dives into the experimental artistic community of indie label International Anthem. Noah Kupper visits the mosh pit to experience the Heideggerian thrill of Nothingness.
In other required reading, New School scholars and educators call for an end to the violence in Israel and Palestine: “The differences among us do not prevent agreement on the urgent need for a ceasefire and life-saving aid.”
How Deathcore Superstars Lorna Shore Evoke “the Nothing”
Noah Kupper
Dressed in black and torn clothing, each member bears individualized insignias on their backs resembling mythological inscriptions. The band’s singer commands, “Open up that fucking pit.” The room immediately shifts to make an empty circle for a mosh pit in the middle of the crowd. People begin to run along its edges as if in a vortex as beats blast, cymbals crash, guitars roar, and a furious vocal erupts amid flashing red and white lights. For a moment the music stops, and the vocalist howls, “What is life, but a fevered dream?” The crowd shrieks in unison, ready to explode back into action, reinvigorated by the call to mosh.
An Experimental Music Community Grows in Brooklyn
NJ Smith
When I saw DePlume in person this past September, his main instrument throughout was tenor sax. Oscillation is a big part of his playing, with plenty of vibrato and often in striking, spiraling bursts, like spring-loaded birdsong. He plays the horn cocked to his side at an angle, like Lester Young used to, and floats with his steps from left to right. It was interesting, watching this—how hypnotic it was, and how the rhythm drove the circling melodies.
Singer-Songwriter Indigo de Souza on Death and the Beauty of Life
Robert Noble
“Darker Than Death” is a brooding progressive rock slow-burn that finds de Souza in the aftermath of some conflict. Her vocals unfurl like smoke as she recounts to a partner, “You were darker than death, when I spoke to you last.” The specifics are hazy—even she is unsure of the root of the conflict—but the emotions are potent. Death here characterizes the depths one can fall into in a relationship marred by doubt and a sense of misalignment. “Darling, you wouldn’t even look me in the eyes,” she recalls, in what feels like a final blow.