Out today! Stern “Missive: Sister Ships” on vinyl and digital in fine shops everywhere and directly from SGG. We are so pleased to finally unleash this goddamn masterpiece on a world that may just not be ready for it.
Record release party September 5 at Saint Vitus in Brooklyn with Unnatural Ways, Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, & Chain Gang Grave.
Listen/purchase here.
Stern’s new album Missive: Sister Ships is out today on Sleeping Giant Glossolalia. The work of frontman Chuck Stern and three members of Kayo Dot, the Stern sound is haunting and slippery. With a palette of slow tempos and minimal instrumentation, the band constructs a highly unpredictable reality where serenity can flip into nausea in the space of one note. Restraint and dissonance are used as weapons in these austere, strangely meditative songs, but the half-charred remains of familiar pop structures and melodies are ever-present in the periphery.
Chuck Stern’s vocals evoke twisted crooners of past decades – Craig Wedren, Mike Patton, Scott Walker. Other influences include the film scores of Ennio Morricone, the bleak beauty of Justin Broadrick’s work in and out of Godflesh, and even the tangled webs of extreme metal outliers Gorguts. The album was recorded by Daniel Schlett at Strange Weather Studios (Liturgy), and mastered by Paul Gold at Salt Mastering (Gang Gang Dance, Ornament). The flawless design was executed by Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic(Pulp, Aphex Twin).
“Stern’s brand of ‘pop’ is eerie and dissonant, each note seeming to melt into the ether as it’s played. Dreamy, dark… haunting undertones. The fragments of pop that remain are unique and should appeal to fans of industrial, ambient and metal that is a little ‘out there.'”
– Decibel
“Stern successfully navigate the strange combination of hypnagogic pop and much more challenging avant-garde tendencies. And much like Kayo Dot, there exists a sense of yearning toward some sort of hauntological future. Their sound is not unlike an opiate stare at a cyberpunk skyline, or perhaps even more remote science fiction vistas. Their music is adjacent to many scenes, like metal or the cutting edge of jazz, but can’t really be classified as either.”
–Burning Ambulance
“With his project Time of Orchids, Chuck Stern wrote compositions that dabbled in everything from math rock and post-hardcore to jazz and avant-prog. That same spirit lives on with Stern and its current star-studded lineup [members of Kayo Dot]… It’s an album rife with perplexing ideas that only inspires more bewilderment and morbid bliss with each subsequent listen… Something along the lines of Jesu covering Depeche Mode‘s ‘Songs of Faith and Devotion’ after binge-listening to Have a Nice Life and Kayo Dot… On top of it all, Chuck’s ghoulish, morose vocals haunt every twist and turn like a specter trapped in a sealed mausoleum.”
–Heavy Blog Is Heavy
