A chiseled, carnal bellowing was coming from the adjacent room of a subterranean Capitol Hill rehearsal space. The guitar, synths, and drums on the other side of the wall stirred a synth-punk cauldron of medicine-noise. I didn’t know who or what it was, but it swallowed me whole. Songs were systematically devoured by a polyphonic octave generator effect, the same way a swarm of ants eats a jungle. A voice sang, fervent and possessed. The drums played like they were carving a glyph on the ancient Mayan stone sarcophagus beneath the Temple of the Inscriptions pyramid in Palenque, Mexico. (It depicts Pakal sitting in a fucking spacecraft, yet it was carved in the year 685.)
I was powerless to do anything but listen, so I turned the lights off and lay on the floor until their rehearsal was over. Staring into the darkness, images of ancient spacemen danced around a fire in my head…
