Is it the beginning of a new New Age? Around the country, artists are exploring modes in antithesis to Western culture. There’s the Los Angeles sect mostly beholden to Leaving Records. In their own desert depravity kind of way, there’s Ascetic House. There’s the hyper-pop manifestation in Prince Rama. And in Wisconsin is Samantha Glass.
Conceived by Beau Devereaux, Samantha Glass is a distillation of his roots in punk and metal bands around Madison, Wisconsin. As a solo performer he experimented with noise and drone. In subtle ways each vein of sound courses through the heart of Samantha Glass. Ambient entry on “Preparation One” feeds into arpeggiated synth-drone on “Bending Images In The Center” as Devereaux intones “feelings dissipate through a moment that you can’t recall.” His deadpan construes a sense of unfeeling or hollow art, but as “Bending Images…” shifts it settles into a shamanic stratosphere of warm air streams. As much as the title Preparation For A Spot In The World suggests assimilation, Samantha Glass is an unflinching expression of self-definition.
Samantha Glass’ Preparation For A Spot In The World is out May 13 on Holodeck Records.
