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Music

Evan Caminiti's Uneasy New Track Muses on the Toll We Take on the World Around Us

"Toxic Tape (Love Canal" is the first unsettling drone from 'Toxic City Music,' due March 3.
Photo courtesy of the artist.

Evan Caminiti has always told his stories in stark monochromes. Whether solo or in collaboration with Jon Porras as Barn Owl, the New York-based composer has used a host of electronic equipment and digital processing tools to make productions that are harrowing in their stillness and simplicity. They've often come without greater significance appended to them—now, though, he's announced a new record called Toxic City Music that explicitly questions the effects that humans have on the world around us.

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Across the record, he samples industrial sites around the city—"subway tunnels, construction sites, random anecdotes on the street"—and arranges them into slow, uneasy compositions that seem like they could easily swell into terrifying noise, but never really do. "Toxic Tape (Love Canal)," the record's first single, is built around a sample of his own kitchen sink, slowly creaking and rumbling through beatless rhythms in an unsettling assemblage of implied rhythms and broken melodies, which Caminiti said in an email was meant to be a demonstration of "living with the toxic ghosts of industry."

"My apartment's kitchen sink made these strangely intrusive sounds during a period when the water was constantly shut off because of some mysterious maintenance," Caminiti said. "At this same time, the horrible situation with lead poisoning in Flint, MI was being reported on (it's now safe to say that a large portion of lead pipe infrastructure in the US is potentially dangerous). Cue paranoia and anger. This sink sound began to signify many negative things to me, so I subverted it's meaning by digitally tearing it apart and using it in this piece."

If toll you take on the natural world scares you too, you can listen to "Toxic Tape (Love Canal)" below alongside the album cover. Toxic City Music, which also features contributions from experimental luminaries Jefre Cantu-Ledesma and Rafael Anton Irisarri, will be out on March 3 on Caminiti's own Dust Editions.

Evan Caminiti has always told his stories in stark monochromes. Whether solo or in collaboration with Jon Porras as Barn Owl, the New York-based composer has used a host of electronic equipment and digital processing tools to make productions that are harrowing in their stillness and simplicity. They've often come without greater significance appended to them—now, though, he's announced a new record called Toxic City Music that explicitly questions the effects that humans have on the world around us.

Across the record, he samples industrial sites around the city—"subway tunnels, construction sites, random anecdotes on the street"—and arranges them into slow, uneasy compositions that seem like they could easily swell into terrifying noise, but never really do. "Toxic Tape (Love Canal)," the record's first single, is built around a sample of his own kitchen sink, slowly creaking and rumbling through beatless rhythms in an unsettling assemblage of implied rhythms and broken melodies, which Caminiti said in an email was meant to be a demonstration of "living with the toxic ghosts of industry."

"My apartment's kitchen sink made these strangely intrusive sounds during a period when the water was constantly shut off because of some mysterious maintenance," Caminiti said. "At this same time, the horrible situation with lead poisoning in Flint, MI was being reported on (it's now safe to say that a large portion of lead pipe infrastructure in the US is potentially dangerous). Cue paranoia and anger. This sink sound began to signify many negative things to me, so I subverted it's meaning by digitally tearing it apart and using it in this piece."

If toll you take on the natural world scares you too, you can listen to "Toxic Tape (Love Canal)" below alongside the album cover. Toxic City Music, which also features contributions from experimental luminaries Jefre Cantu-Ledesma and Rafael Anton Irisarri, will be out on March 3 on Caminiti's own Dust Editions.