Anguish 'Anguish'

The dark, impossibly intense dirges, industrial noise onslaughts and banshee-like free jazz wailing heard throughout Anguish could be an imposing soundtrack for a dystopian, post-apocalyptic future. This powerhouse, inter-generational offering and RareNoise Records debut brings together an unlikely gathering of members of the New Jersey-based experimental hip-hop group Dälek (electronic musician and vocalist Will Brooks with guitarist-keyboardist Mike Mare), the Swedish free jazz group Fire! Orchestra (tenor saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, drummer Andreas Werliin) and the classic ‘70s German krautrock band Faust (keyboardist and 68-year-old founding member Hans Joachim Irmler). 

Recorded in just three days during the summer of 2018 at Faust’s Scheer Studios, located in a former factory perched on the banks of the Danube in Swabia, Germany, near the Swiss border, 'Anguish' stands as a hard-hitting manifesto for the next evolution in the hip-hop legacy. From the droning opener, “Vibrations,” fueled by ambient loops and sparked by Gustafsson’s cathartic, blast furnace intensity on tenor, to the slamming, industrial-tinged closer, “Wümme,” 'Anguish' is an iron fist upside the head of complacency.