Active since the beginning of the second decade of 2000, the project of Philly‘s musician Noah Anthony, under the Profligate moniker, with its visceral and intense mix of industrial, heavy electronics, synth wave, and darkwave, has ceaselessly walked on the fine contrasting line between melody and distortion, chaos and harmony, coldness and warmth, synthetic and organic.
They actually relocated to Cleveland, Ohio experimentalist is about to return with a new album, titled “Too Numb To Know”, due September 25, 2020 via Brooklyn‘s Wharf Cat Records, that increasingly accentuates the sharp dark-pop leanings already underscored in the 2018’s “Somewhere Else” LP, delving further into obscure post-punk and coldwave realms, while retaining his distinctive noise undertones, with a more prominent use of live instrumentation, such as the guitar, introduced extensively for the first time.
“Too Numb to Know” is a bi-coastal journey from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, “a city he found creatively challenging and emotionally depleting” due to “the theft of his computer and the work he’d done in L.A.” Finally, friendship brought Anthony to Cleveland, where the contributions of allies Matchess, Lazy Magnet, Gel Set, and Missions made the final cut, and TNTK is born.
The autobiographical first single “Hang Up” is an urgent, driving pop song combining hypnotic electronics with the piercing and reverb-drenched strings of the guitar and bass, “creating more space for melody, and using it to fill the room.”
Bright keyboards flash eerie urgent melodies over deep treacherous meandering bassline danger that bounces steadily over skipping scratching beats mixed with rapid thuds and sparkling guitar strings, while shapeshifting vocalizations alternate between low monochromatic hums, energetic choral reverb stutters, and bold hindsight warnings to build a hard edge of mechanical momentum bursting in deadly dance-inducing rhythm.
Lyrics are an important message from the future to a younger self advising the importance of trusting instincts amid chaos as a tumultuous retrospective laced in dysfunctional romance please, “To hang up, hang up!”
DIY visuals made during quarantine, alone in the basement, with additional projections by Mike Stoltz, radiate dark shadows that blend with smoky overlays, to create a nuanced interplay between the black and white contrasts found within, instrumentation, mental clarity, and distorted distractions. Disturbed facial expressions contemplate distant words from the wise, as an anonymous female silently speaks seductive intentions into the mind’s eye of recollection. Flickering, sparkling reflections glisten with a fluid motion of alternate choices, like strobe lights pulse to the deep metronomic dance beat cut with dramatic red insights.
Profligate ‘s forthcoming new album “Too Numb To Know”, ltd. Vinyl+7″EP/ltd. CD/Digital, is slated for release on September 25, 2020 via Brooklyn‘s independent label Wharf Cat Records,
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