Trying to pin down electroacoustic composer Heejin Jang is like trying to corner a swarm of cockroaches — they all end up getting away, and you’re left with disappearing appendages clattering until the void of their passing is all that remains, the grip on your smacking shoe loosening ever so subtly as the milliseconds pass.
But here goes anyway.
Trouble in the Camp presents a dangerous and feral Heejin, if the rendering of the canid upper jaw and black scratched lines on the front cover are any indication, reflecting a breakdown of manner into chaos and destruction. There’s trouble in the camp indeed, a closing in from the outside of nefarious elements, and not only is the alarm sounding, we’re also panicking and reverting to a state of survival. It’s all blood and teeth until we can escape, if escape is even possible.
We are the cockroaches, scurrying, restless, filthy. Extrapolate: the camp is this planet that contains us, and we are on the receiving end of its punishment. Every agonizing moment is filled with anxiety. Someone bigger than us has a smashy-smashy-cockroach shoe at the ready, waiting for us to scurry from our nests. Heejin sits removed, documenting, like a scientist collecting data before drawing conclusions. Trouble in the Camp is the messy, unfiltered results.
Cassette/digital on Doom Trip Records.
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