Secret Boyfriend 'This Is Always Where You've Lived'
Secret Boyfriend 'This Is Always Where You've Lived'
Blackest Ever Black, 2013
BLACKEST023
This late '13 LP from North Carolina noisenik Ryan Martin is an ambitious exercise in genre hopping: Experimental tape textures, neofolk, some stripped down synth pop, it really moves around. Like, "Beyond the Darkness" (below). It's just a killer coldwave cut that doesn't really sound anything like anything else on the record. And not only does it never misfire, this mixed bag comes out greater than the sum of its parts because it's all held together by a special and extraordinary bleakness.
Definitely fits in with the rest of the goth on BEB... fans of Tropic of Cancer should dig this.
In addition to releasing quite a bit of other music under different names, mostly on cassette, Martin runs the recommended Hot Releases label. I'm eager to hear more.
