Russian Baths combines the abrasive sounds of ’80s New York, the angular outbursts of DC hardcore, shoegaze’s torrents of noise and the suffocating anxiety of the Information Age. One part horror movie soundtrack, serene still life and personal confession, the band’s music is both imposing and intimate. As with their namesake, Russian Baths’ work is a place where hidden things happen, sometimes beautiful, sometimes tragic, always obscured, but calling to be explored.
Their forthcoming debut album, ‘Deepfake,’ takes their art of juxtaposition to its extreme. Feedback and dissonance swallow softly whispered harmonies. Granular synths and 808s rest besides guitar shrieks and pounding, live drums. Caustic fits are punctuated by moments of relief, tortured the next second. Surgical imagery, themes of personal regret and cultural guilt, reflections on systems in collapse and the accompanying anomie populate the soundscape, sung by voices sometimes so close, they’re in the room besides you, sometimes from an impossible distance. Unlike their dissonant peers, in only one section do the proceedings lead to a scream.
Recorded and assembled over the course of two of years and meticulously mixed by Ben Greenberg, ‘Deepfake‘ is dense, dark and finely crafted. Listen to singles Parasite + Tracks, which are lifted from ‘Deepfake’.
Look for Deepfake out November 8th via Good Eye Records.
Russian Baths is Jess Rees (guitar, vocals) and Luke Koz (guitar, vocals), joined live by Kyle Garvey (bass) and Steven Levine (drums) from Brooklyn, NY. They have shared stages with Black Midi, Drahla, Uniform, Horrors, We Are Scientists, Bambara, and others.
