S4lem Cast a Shadow ov BL3AK MAJIK on I / V / X

Pendu Mag

Dec
28th
2009

Photo by Bea Fremderman

Pendu is bringing S4LEM (http://www.myspace.com/s4lem) to NYC! Yes, it’s true…. Right now, there is no doubt that Salem is creating a unique presence in electronic music. Epic dark murky depressed; Perfect for the HOPE-less world we live in. People that haven’t heard them always ask what they sound like and it’s great hearing the varied responses. Their sound is elusive for a description that falls into a particular genre, but they’re not forcing this. This is not contrived strangeness. In my mind, their sound couldn’t exist in any other time period other than now and in the future. Nothing retro here. It’s black…Bleak even. A kind of Bleak Majik. A soundtrack for the disaffected and disowned. Deep tones laden with a backbone of syrupy Tylenol-3 skrewed beats in a sinister hazy swirling of poolwater-drowning darkness: Salem create a tense kind of skrewed-shoegaze (“skrewgaze”). Nihilism for Urban Youth. In some ways, even though the music is aesthetically removed from from metal, it still has me imagining what buzzsaw black metal would sound like if it were fucked with by the late DJ Screw or by Three 6 Mafia but with ethereal vocals rising from the haze. They’re amazing, plain and simple. No hyperbole needed to sell the greatness of their work. There are bound to be imitators coming along behind them, but we know who the originators are.

- Todd ‘Pendu’ Brooks

Salem + Gatekeeper at Glasslands on January 5, 2010 -- Cya @ Thee Show! Buy Tix at http://www.pendu.org/store

SALEM -- DIRT from ACEPHALE on Vimeo.