Sanguisuge Da Affordable Care Act

[Neo Noise Collective; 2019]

Rating: 4/5

Styles: “dxWTLusH,” journalism, proto-agriculture
Others: Cordilleran ice sheet, Duwamish land, Northgate Mall

Like much of what is now North America, King County, WA was once entirely covered in ice. Constantly moving over centuries, these massive continental glaciers figured like capricious gods: each carving terrain into geographic fiefdoms bearing unconscious witness to the weepings of the clouds. 19,000 years into the future, humankind has recreated the gods in its own image. The ice has all but retreated, but its presence is still very much with us: One need only spend five minutes flicking through headlines to find stark warnings of a future human ghost — the polar ice caps will melt, and we all may die, but at least, in the mean time, we can thank our prehistoric ancestors for attempting music.

And so here’s a deadly descendant: Da Affordable Care Act, an album that, despite the flippantly pseudo-political title, is not “hardcore” by ways of D.C., the other Washington, but sounds like it could be of the same dynamic spirit; it possesses the genotype — recessive traits FTBT/DIY/BYOB — without expressing any of the maladaptive phenotypes (see: rawk).

It comes at you at a staggering (read: glacial) pace of 0.000034 miles per hour. Feature-length and boasting tracks that each clock in at over 10 minutes — so hold onto your bladder — the album smarts and spikes like ice in your urine, or, like, I dunno, lachrymose vermes gently excreting hirudin into your bloodstream. And yet, Da Affordable Care Act provides not only an exchange, but also a sole foray into the psychic energy of the enigmatic “matt and tony”: the twin hosts of the so-called leech boys(z). Villi vacillate, delivering a deadly parasitic ear-worm that could stun the Smilodon populator.

And so, the life cycle is complex and scary, but not unknowable, like Y. pestis or William Gibson’s Alien. All things considered, I’m not sure what to call this. Certainly not “noise,” noisy though it may be. Unlike many exponents of that reluctant taxon, Da Affordable Care Act rarely seems to dissolve into anything like pastiche or monotony. Though seemingly improvised, all parts appear carefully measured: precise like science, but free like electrons. Regardless, Da Affordable Care Act builds sonic statues that are tight and precise, especially so for something longer than some made-for-TV films. As much as it may bore into your skull — like a power drill or rapidly-melting icicle — Da Affordable Care Act will never bore you.

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