Bud Sturgess' Debut Noise Tape Is a True Terror

Like any good child of the internet era, Amarillo, Texas experimentalist Hayden Pedigo has a wide-ranging set of musical interests. The 22-year-old musician is best known to the world at large as an acoustic guitarist, having released a few solo records of winning instrumentals inspired by the great American primitivists. But 2016's been a year of breaking the mold. Back in May, he released a series of interstellar drones as Dumas Demons in collaboration with Mac DeMarco's live drummer Joe McMurray, and shortly thereafter, he launched his hometown's first ever improvisational noise act with a friend of his. Today, he's back again, flexing yet another side of his musical output in a new project called Bud Sturgess.

Knowing Pedigo as a generally cheery and enterprising young musician, Bud Sturgess' debut tape can be a bit of a shock to the system. Built around trashed synthesizers, distorted tape samples, and harsh sonics wrangled from a three string guitar, the release's four untitled tracks bear a far greater resemblance to the annals of industrial music and harsh noise than they do the cosmos-searching instrumentals he's released under his own name. There's aching drones, blistered noise blasts, and gasping vocal samples all clamoring for space in the same tracks. It's an anxious cacophony, familiar stuff for fans of acts like Wolf Eyes and Hair Police (who are shouted out on the Bandcamp page). But it's all the more striking coming from someone like Pedigo, a sign that there's a little darkness lingering under even the most friendly facades.

Pedigo says that he started the project inspired by "different types of metal music," but that it was mostly an attempt to get outside his own skin. "Bud Sturgess was a character I thought up for this release and it's a journey through his eyes in a way," he explains in an email. "I feel like people think I'm some kind of clean-cut, folky, corny guitar player! The exploration of "Bud" was trying to be a totally different person/character. I've always wanted to be a punk vocalist like Black Flag but I've never even attempted. This was my weird way of channeling that through the character of Bud."

The tape's streaming below in full or you can order a copy via the heavy Texas label Anvileater. I'll leave you a word Pedigo's advice to me when he first sent the songs my way: listen loud.