Discover / / 01.05.15

Show Me The Body

Something important is brewing amongst New York-based zine/label/art crew/live collective Letter Racer. Based loosely around acts including experimental rap trio Ratking and the associated projects of members Wiki and Sporting Life, they also number the weirdo, beat-programmed pop-trash of 86 and new-wave jungle fetishist Lee Bannon as associates. At the core of the group are Queens-based sludge freaks Show Me The Body, whose discordant mulch is a reflection of the non-judgemental, open-ended ethos of Letter Racer, and the collective’s reaction to city-wide – world-wide – gentrification. 

“Letter Racer is how we participate,” the band state over an email exchange. “Kids all over the city are reimagining all the tunnels, parks, apartments, and galleries. It’s what happens when you evict families or raise the rents: kids claim other spaces. No one owns Letter Racer, there’s no president. It’s the group of artists and friends we work with and trust.”

SMTB dropped their debut EP, nauseatingly named Yellow Kidney, last year. It was a jarring, woozy collection of clashing rhythms overlaid by a confident, spoken-word flow and potent blasts of guttural grunt. It also featured an unplaceable top-end tone, an unsettlingly familiar, grating clang. A clamber through live photos gave the game away, with vocalist Jay Cashwan-Pratt pictured hammering away at a four-string banjo. In disharmony with the burly shapes of bass player Harlan Steed and the metallic force of drummer Noah Cohen-Corbett, the banjo became a formidable tool. “Harsh noise is really important to us,” say the band of the unorthodox instrumentation, but those four strings offer something else; a curious melody, an evocative, gangrenous, malevolent country twinkle. 

Last month heralded a self-titled follow-up EP, and it’s a step up in every way. The banjo’s alternation between ominous twang and brutally abrasive reverb sits even more awkwardly over the meaty, sludgy backdrop, and Cashwan’s addictive, slurry vocal paves the way more effectively for the brash explosions at the heart of tracks like Space Faithful and Bone Soup, or the warped, post-punk patterns of Six Fingers Thick. The heaviness betrays the band’s sludge/doom adoration – they cite scene luminaries like Dystopia, Grief, EyeHateGod, Salem and Tommy Wright III as influences – but it’s dyed in the wool with the jazzy, avant-garde wonk of only-in-NY no wave.

The seasick waddle of Vernon, meanwhile, features a typically on-point cameo from Ratking rapper Wiki, who spits in double time over the track’s wandering jangle. Their affiliation is like the younger sibling of the Trash Talk/OFWGKTA union on the opposite coast; an inclusive meeting of minds in the world’s most exciting city, a crossover built on mutual artistic expression trickling down from artist to audience. “There is no crossover,” stress SMTB forcefully, bluntly. “The music we play is an organic product of our environment. The kids who come to our shows understand that.” 

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