Snail Male / Pale Nale - Split Cassette (Crooked Branch Collections, 2020)
Maiden release of Crooked Branch Collections and split debut from two new projects focused on auditory and conceptual exploration.
Snail Male is a project thematically based on human exploration of the unknown, and on its first release creates haunting and moody loop + voice-based compositions that examine both the exhilaration and terror of venturing into a cave alone and with no idea of either what is being sought or what’s to be found. Specifically, the material provides a loose retelling of the discovery of Ruby Falls, a large underground waterfall deep in the bowels of Lookout Mountain outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Pale Nail’s themes and motivations aren’t nearly as easy to parse, but the material on their side also suggests physical exploration, although of a place much less comforting than a cave. The first track, ‘Old’ takes a cue from classic junk noise starting sparsely and moving toward an anxious clanging tension before eventually collapsing in on itself and swallowing its own tail. ‘Knot’, creates the sensation of a train barreling towards you as it’s metal parts rust and degrade at accelerated speeds, flying off in jagged shards sure to rip through anything in their way, including you. The final track, ‘Aleister’, brings together the essence of the previous two creating the feeling of being in some sort of decaying transport depot, long abandoned and with only the smell of rotting wood and the large piles of warped steel remaining.
C40 w/ risograph printed j-card. Edition of 50.