Wed., 8/27/25
Wreck and Reference (LA), Ex-Heir, Brahm, Skoto
8:00pm, $12 adv., $15 door
Wreck and Reference
Absolute Still Life is the fourth full-length album by the Los Angeles experimental duo Wreck and Reference. The album marks a radical departure from the band’s heavy and noise rock origins and finds them driving toward a more electronic and abstract dimension. Like past albums, warped synthesizers and pillaged samples build up the harmonic elements of the songs,but the absence of acoustic drums givesAbsolute Still Life a colder, more alien aesthetic. With fewer screams and stranger textures than before, Wreck and Reference find themselves alone again in uncharted and uncategorizable territory.
Absolute Still Life’scover depicts a sickly still life in which edible and inedible elements mix in an unnatural and unappetizing collage of bright colors. The title reflects the absurdist version of reality that we find ourselves in and unable to escape.
To date, Wreck and Reference have released four EPs and three full-length albums. Their first work, an EP titledBlack Cassette, showcased distorted fragments and synthesizers in angular, heavy songs, with themes of determinism and Cormac McCarthy-esque isolation. Their debut full-lengthY̶o̶u̶t̶h̶(2012) and their sophomore releaseWant(2014), described by Pitchfork as having “radical vision” and “boundless experimentation,” represented dramatic expansions of their sonic palette. In 2016, Wreck and Reference released their third LP, Indifferent Rivers Romance End, perfecting their song craft and pushing their noisy, sample-based instrumentation to its limits.
https://wreckandreference.bandcamp.com/
Ex-Heir
The newest addition of EX-HEIR's mutant body music has arrived to the ever expanding genus of internet storage. The freak electro GEN EXCESS is a 12 track homage to our "vanity OD, emotional amphetamine" bender in the relentless abundance of the digital overworld. GEN EXCESS contends and nurtures the generative forms of pain, pleasure and addiction in this cosplay of reality. Elements of Alien Sex Fiend, Fad Gadget & Cabaret Voltaire resonate through EX-HEIR's own breed of raw electro dance novelties crafted to "release the tension" that you may find accumulating in this generation of excess.
https://exheir.bandcamp.com/album/gen-excess
Brahm
https://brahm-ca.bandcamp.com/album/i-try-to-rage-against-it
Skoto
https://skoto.bandcamp.com/album/murder-music
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