tAngerinecAt: Grief
(self-released)
CD | DL | Vinyl
Launched Might 2025
Experimental duo tAngerinecAt return with an album brimful of affection, loss, anger and transformation. Andy Brown explores Grief for Louder Than Warfare.
I first got here throughout experimental duo tAngerinecAt through their elegant 2022 LP, Glass. This darkish but distinctly defiant album was – and stays – some of the memorable and startling introductions I’ve needed to a band in a while. Significantly, neither Donovan or the Butthole Surfers can put together you for what non-binary vocalist, poet and multi-instrumentalist Zhenia Purpurovsky (he/him) can do with a hurdy-gurdy. It’s been just a few years however Purpurovsky and Paul Chilton (they/them) are again with Grief: a posh and emotional album brimful of affection, loss, anger and transformation.
Placing the hurdy-gurdy to 1 aspect, the report is made up of atmospheric synths and industrial digital textures. On the centre of this we have now Purpurovsky’s unimaginable voice: an arresting and unquestionably passionate presence all through the albums eight tracks. Simply hearken to the sparse and placing title monitor that opens up the LP. Utilizing overtone singing strategies, Purpurovsky’s Jap European tones fill the house and ship shivers up my woefully underprepared backbone. The phrases to this specific music are sung in Ukrainian however you don’t need to search for the interpretation to really feel each single syllable in your soul.
tAngerinecAt are primarily based in North Wales however Chilton is initially from Cheshire and Purpurovsky was born within the Ukraine. This creates a novel sense of place that echoes by way of the report in quite a few methods, from the songs sung in Ukrainian to the thread of Welsh mythology that informs the albums narrative. Grief is a profoundly private challenge with Purpurovsky’s id, trauma and a robust anti-war/ anti-fascist sentiment working by way of the very coronary heart of the report.
The album embraces minimalism, stripping every little thing again to let the stark soundscapes and Purpurovsky’s voice actually shine. Simply take the evocative March of Mourn: a minimalistic beat that regularly evolves right into a brooding wave of synths and the sound of waves crashing towards the shore. “Give me energy to bury the missiles” go the phrases like some secular anti-war prayer. That is the ache, the hope and – certainly – the grief that occupies the album.
Freedom ramps up the depth as Purpurovsky lets out an impassioned plea: “Take my nationality/ Give me many languages/ I wish to be free.” The sound design all through the album is totally exemplary; shifting between near-pin drop moments of quiet to intense industrial dread. A way of each hypnotic concord and inescapable pressure. The Irish Sea has an virtually bodily presence because it judders uncomfortably from my headphones. They could be electronically conjured however the textures listed below are paying homage to early industrial music the place sheet metallic and oil drums had been used as instrumentation.
Downtrodden however without end defiant: that is darkish, ominous and decidedly offended music. Each phrase on Fireplace is expelled by way of gritted-teeth. “I’m raging/ I’m demolishing oppression” the singer spits as the stress continues to rise. Subaltern hits us with a throbbing, cathartic bombardment of beats. Purpurovsky seethes over the noise: “To this nation I got here by luck/ Truthful-play you say? What the fuck! Who’re you to inform me who I’m? Who do you suppose you might be to outline me?” For all its spectacular technical accomplishments, Grief is an album propelled by a uncooked, palpable ardour.
The duo are atheists however have talked about incorporating the tone of Jap Orthodox liturgy into the album; this ceremonial spirit is especially distinguished on a monitor like Gwyn ap Nudd. The title refers back to the King of the “honest people” in Welsh mythology and right here serves as a metaphorical and transformative conduit for Purpurovsky. Sung in Ukrainian, the vocal efficiency is nothing in need of spine-tingling. Cyhyraeth is known as after a Welsh mythological spirit and offers us with a suitably ghostly and endlessly intriguing conclusion. I may study every element of the duo’s sound and nonetheless not grasp fairly how they do what they do. Truthfully, it’s like magic.
To my ears, the album recollects artists as various as Einstürzende Neubauten and Angelo Badalamenti whereas Purpurovsky has cited everybody from Gesaffelstein to Ghostpoet as influences. But finally, tAngerinecAt may by no means actually sound like anybody however themselves. Drawing from the private and political, the duo have crafted one other daring, passionate and artistically completed album. It’s definitely a darkish and inarguably intense report but by no means one which’s devoid of hope. Grief is the sound of perseverance, the triumph of artwork and the human spirit within the face of adversity.
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You will discover tAngerinecAt on Fb and Instagram.
Take heed to and purchase their music on Bandcamp HERE.
All phrases by Andy Brown. You possibly can go to his creator profile and browse extra of his critiques for Louder Than Warfare right here.
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