Sink that knife
To end its life
Our blood will show
For the full flesh flow!
A shroud of mystery envelops Austin, Texas entity Nemion, described as “wandering the deep Abyss for fragments of light.” Fusing erotic darkness with surrealism, darkwave, and conflict, their latest video for “Excission” off the Malignant EP is a dazzling, disturbing onslaught of medical nightmares.
The bizarre track is deceptively quirky, a mix of hardened industrial with dashes of funk bass, chanting, and space lasers. We hear moments of Thomas Dolby, NIN, and Fad Gadget in this sound – the latter particularly in the song’s frantic, paranoid exploration of the human body’s limitations. This is a breakup song to a tumour that needs removing, stat. Vocalist Jenner Carnelian writhes about, wailing, moaning, performing an exorcism of his own soul – and the nasty intruders invading his physical form – through the transformative power of sound.
Marc Almond and Frank Tovey would be proud of this video – a masterpiece in gruesome, psychologically-disturbing performance art where the tumour becomes a living, breathing creature – has everything from forbidden kinks to giant blood clots to a few American Psycho references.
Watch the video below:
Malignant, in short, is a concept album about cancer and the emotions associated with its presence: paranoia, anxiety, and ultimately relief; its five tracks named after stages of illness: Malady, Malignant, Growth, Excision, Recovery. In the band’s words, the album is likened to the growth of a tumour in the human body: its seemingly insignificant beginnings snowballing into a parasitic betrayal of one’s own cells.
Each track on the album has its own personality in keeping with its emotional theme for each stage of illness. Jenner explains further:
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