Photo by: Cody Keto
Official press release:
Crucial Blast confirms the early May release of the debut EP by Snares Of Sixes – a volatile and exploratory new entity created by Jason Walton, founding member of now defunct Agalloch – with Yeast Mother: An Electroacoustic Mass.
Fusing an intense and eclectic range of extreme and experimental approaches into a disjointed and somehow simultaneously seamless hybrid of sounds, Yeast Mother: An Electroacoustic Mass features contributions from members of Lawnmower Deth, Winds, Sculptured, Blekspetl, Hollow Branches, Self Spiller, Barrowlands, Age Of Silence, Dolven, Musk Ox, The Night Watch, Maestus, and more.
While renowned for his work as bassist for Agalloch and Sculptured, Jason Walton has also frequently ventured into other, stranger and more experimental regions over the past two decades, offering a range of baffling and captivatingly weird sounds with bands like Self Spiller, Especially Likely Sloth, and Nothing. And it’s in that latter territory that we find the debut EP from Snares Of Sixes, his latest creation. On the band’s debut EP Yeast Mother: An Electroacoustic Mass, Snares Of Sixes makes a bold and confounding introduction, tangling the listener in confusing, highly aggressive avant-prog. The genre-shredding sound taps into a warped confluence of frenzied King Crimson-esque progressive rock, faint traces of frayed, heavily mutated black metal, haunting atmospheric touches, and abrasive electronics, and the result leaves us deliriously disoriented.
Often difficult, frequently nightmarish, Snares Of Sixes‘ output easily ranks as one of Walton‘s more challenging and oblique offerings, and for the listeners, one of his most fascinating. Features Marius Sjøli and Robert Hunter (Hollow Branches), Andy Winter (Winds), Pete Lee (Lawnmower Deth), Nathanaël Larochette (Musk Ox), and Don Anderson (Agalloch, Sculptured), among others. Recorded all over the world, the record was mixed at Earth in Sound Studios by Jason Walton, mastered by James Plotkin, and features graphics by Marius Sjoli and artwork by Aesop Dekker.
Crucial Blast will issue Yeast Mother: An Electroacoustic Mass on digital and six-panel digipak CD on May 5th. Stand by for audio previews, pre-order info, and more in the weeks ahead. Snares Of Sixes is currently working on a live lineup in order to start performing live in the months ahead.
Yeast Mother: An Electroacoustic Mass track listing:
1. “Urine Hive”
2. “Lions To Leeches”
3. “The Mother’s Throat”
4. “Retroperistalsis”
Five years ago, in a period of downtime from the band Agalloch, Jason Walton wanted to write a strange and abrasive record; the aim was to record an album that pushed on the paradigms within metal. The result is a cohesive and challenging album that draws from seemingly disparate ideas and styles. Initially slated be a full-length album, Walton realized that he complexity and density of the material encourages listening in small dosage, and Snares Of Sixes’ Yeast Mother: An Electroacoustic Mass EP was finalized.
With tracks like “Urine Hive”, “Lions To Leeches”, “The Mother’s Throat”, Walton and company lurch through an escalating, ever-shifting frenzy of creepy, labyrinthine melody and pummeling percussive chaos, over-modulated riffage and schizophrenic time signatures, where android mutterings give way to hideous blackened shrieks and bouts of bizarre crooning, the sound stitched with veins of crushing metallic heaviness, fragments of fractured electronica, and an overall surreal animated alternate reality vibe as it reaches towards the menacing glitched-out tech-metal hallucination of “Retroperistalsis” that closes the EP.
Yeast Mother: An Electroacoustic Mass Lineup:
Jason Walton – MIDI mangler, Synths, Vocals, Bass, Guitar, Melodica, Oscillators
Marius Sjoli – Vocals, Guitars, Synths
Robert Hunter – Vocals, Guitars
Martti Hill – Vocals
Andy Winter – Guitars
Nick Wusz – Vocals
Nick Loiacano – Vocals
Lawnmower Pete Lee – Vocals
Nathanael Larochette – Guitars
Stephen Parker – Guitars
Don Anderson – Guitars (on “Retroperistalsi”)