Loud Sounds 149
Mary Middlefield — Take me as i am
Mary is an extremely versatile artist whose output includes not only multiple genres, but a whole palette of emotions (while keeping a consistent and strong vision). She almost went ambient pop on Milk, then full-on 2000s alternative rock on Wake Up! (not to mention the earlier, more intimate records we covered a few years ago, including an album review).
Take me as i am brings together the dreaminess and romanticism of the earlier stuff with the grit and the bolder sound of her recent singles.
Mary is an extremely versatile artist whose output includes not only multiple genres, but a whole palette of emotions (while keeping a consistent and strong vision). She almost went ambient pop on Milk, then full-on 2000s alternative rock on Wake Up! (not to mention the earlier, more intimate records we covered a few years ago, including an album review).
Take me as i am brings together the dreaminess and romanticism of the earlier stuff with the grit and the bolder sound of her recent singles.
Check out more tracks from the artist and her colleagues working with HAWK Publicity, "an independent entertainment powerhouse based in London with a truly global outlook".
Kris Vango — CVNTY
The project is framed as a documentation of movement and perception: self-generated synthesis, binaural frequencies, and field recordings gathered across shrines, monuments, and other charged locations. The visual layer—shot entirely on an iPhone—extends that idea into something closer to a personal log than a polished audiovisual statement.
The sound itself is built on rigid techno stabs that repeat with little variation. They hit with intent but avoid density; instead of a thick, saturated low end, the mix stays relatively flat. That absence becomes structural. It strips the expected physical weight from the track and replaces it with tension. The result feels less like club functionality and more like a controlled reduction of it.
There’s a constant sense of pressure. The harmonic content is minimal, the space is dry, and the repetition accumulates unease. It leans toward something adjacent to horror scoring—not through cinematic gestures, but through persistence and restraint.
Over this, fragments of speech appear. They carry a sexual tone, but the context distorts it. The delivery and placement turn those elements into signals of threat rather than intimacy. Combined with the tempo and the rigid sequencing, the track suggests escalation without release. It holds itself in a state of anticipation and doesn’t resolve it.
What emerges is not immersive in a traditional sense. It functions more like a study in withholding: of bass weight, of narrative payoff, of emotional clarity. That approach may read as deliberate or incomplete depending on expectations, but it defines the piece more than any individual sound choice.
The project is framed as a documentation of movement and perception: self-generated synthesis, binaural frequencies, and field recordings gathered across shrines, monuments, and other charged locations. The visual layer—shot entirely on an iPhone—extends that idea into something closer to a personal log than a polished audiovisual statement.
The sound itself is built on rigid techno stabs that repeat with little variation. They hit with intent but avoid density; instead of a thick, saturated low end, the mix stays relatively flat. That absence becomes structural. It strips the expected physical weight from the track and replaces it with tension. The result feels less like club functionality and more like a controlled reduction of it.
There’s a constant sense of pressure. The harmonic content is minimal, the space is dry, and the repetition accumulates unease. It leans toward something adjacent to horror scoring—not through cinematic gestures, but through persistence and restraint.
Over this, fragments of speech appear. They carry a sexual tone, but the context distorts it. The delivery and placement turn those elements into signals of threat rather than intimacy. Combined with the tempo and the rigid sequencing, the track suggests escalation without release. It holds itself in a state of anticipation and doesn’t resolve it.
What emerges is not immersive in a traditional sense. It functions more like a study in withholding: of bass weight, of narrative payoff, of emotional clarity. That approach may read as deliberate or incomplete depending on expectations, but it defines the piece more than any individual sound choice.
Check out more tracks from the artist.