Black Spirituals are made up of noise musician Zachary James Watkins and drummer Marshall Trammel. Watkins has his MFA in electronic and recorded music from Mills College and has received various rewards and recognitions for his broad spectrum of musical arrangements. Trammel also has an MFA in electronic music and is one hell of a drummer. Together, they create some otherworldly music that I, with a BFA in journalism, cannot quite describe. So I will take this quote from their press release.
They retreat on the paths already taken and dive head first into the unknown straight ahead. Theirs is a conversation of mankind of both high tech electronics and simple acoustics. It is a dialectic of all and everything between, below and above revolutionary drive and utter peace of mind. This dialogue is ritual and process.
The track “Body” is off their new three song album, Of Deconstruction where the combination of Watkins noise resonance and Trammels percussion defy musical conventions to create 30 minutes of tribal noise. The six and a half minute track is almost two minutes of complete silence, interrupted by a series of sparse percussion and abrasive noise. While “Body” may be hard to put into words, it provides an enlightening and thoughtful listen that will please those attentive to its abstract experimentation. Of Deconstruction will be out October 2014 via SIGE Records and you can stream “Body” below.
