Matchess

“Bewitching” is the only word we could come up with to describe “Seraphastra” when we first heard it in 2013. Originally released on an extremely limited cassette by the Digitalis label, the album makes a welcome debut to the vinyl format. Matchess is the solo project of Whitney Johnson, singer & keyboardist for Chicago band Verma, whose banshee-like wail & synth squall can be heard over the band’s more recent Trouble In Mind releases “Coltan” & “Sunrunner” but Johnson’s work as Matchess is a different beast all together. Foregoing her band’s skyward arching krautrock jams for a more subtle, ‘Radiophonic’ approach, “Seraphastra”s alien drones & rhythmic pulse are grounded in the mystic & cosmic efflivium of modern spiritual synth music.

The tone is immediately set from the first track “The Need of the Greatest Wealth”; it ‘s somber mantric drone, envelops the listener in it ’s simple, comforting embrace before ending in a deafening scree of Johnson's electric viola. Other tracks like the entrancing “Letters of Blood & Fire” & “Utterly Delightful Cry of Outrage” are simultaneously exotic as they are familiar, operating just outside the realm of traditional song structure, dipping a toe in here & there. Johnson’s minimalist sensibility owes as much to the Berlin school as it does to early industrial & minimal synth pioneers like Throbbing Gristle & Cabaret Voltaire. Light is finally being shed on the pioneering work of women in electronic music & composition like Delia Derbyshire, Laurie Speigel, and specifically Ruth White (whose spiritual & organic approach to electronic music eschewed it ’s chaotic roots for a more thoughtful & meditative path, with startlingly unsettling results) and Matchess places Johnson in league with counterparts like Zola Jesus and Liz Harris (Grouper), carrying the torch of female experimental & electronic musicians in the 21st century.

"Seraphastra” is re-released on the vinyl format in an edition of 500 copies with all-new artwork by artist Heather Gebel & includes a download code."

RIYL: Grouper, Zola Jesus, Suicide, Brian Eno, Ruth White, Dead C, Craig Leon