Taking the concept of experimental noise to a torturous dimension, Liverpool provocateurs Lonesaw made good use of their relentless gigging hiatus, and recently released their debut single and music video for Barbed Wire Church.
Less “song” than “low-frequency sluggish binaural soundscape with a touch of BDSM,” Lonesaw’s first official release since May’s Live EP marks a new era. Barbed Wire Church, the first single from the upcoming studio EP (recorded at What Studio and QUARRY), sees the band stepping back from their usual wall of noise by embracing esotericism, atmosphere, and minimal electronics. The band draws influence from Throbbing Gristle, early Swans, and Suicide, as well as contemporaries such as ARCA, Lingua Ignota, and Dreamcrusher. Treading the line between industrial and post-punk, Lonesaw’s grotesque cacophony is a mixture of guttural vocals, grinding electronics, pulsating percussion, and double saxophone. If you want to score the experience of having a mini-stroke, this is the closest it gets.
“This has less to do with rock music as we usually think of it and more to do with the experimentation of a cross between Einsturzende Neubauten and Schoenberg. You wonder at times if it’s all going to fall apart into chaos, which of course, is a special kind of skill because it does anything but that,” says Peter Goodbody.
Coinciding with the release of the track is a music video collaboration with Liverpool-based director Jon Stonehouse (2beardsfilms). Stonehouse explains the concept: “For Barbed Wire Church, we knew we wanted it to be more of an ‘experience’ than a traditional music video; something to shake up the viewers’ consciousness a bit. We worked with the symbology of Western Esotericism to introduce ideas from Hermeticism and Mysticism and take them on a journey of reflection. The video watched in its entirety from start to finish is an initiation. I think that’s pretty obvious and we have no qualms about using subliminal messaging and trance-inducing imagery to make our point in the unconscious mind. Are we brainwashing the viewer? Yes. Yes we are! The vast majority of people are idiotic beasts and need all the help they can get.”
Stonehouse may not mince words, but he has a point: this is the dark side of new age sonic therapy.
Are you faint at heart or of the ears? Find out by watching the video for Barbed Wire Church below and dip into the shadow world. (But don’t blame us if you open yet another portal to hell.)
