Artist: Bark Psychosis
Album: Hex
Reviewer: Rem Jensen
It’s a snowed-over, glowing night in Moscow, Idaho, 2017, where the streetlights shatter the glint of falling flakes and flesh-whitening winds. My car stretches along the thin streets, narrowly dodging jilted, drunkenly parked bicycles and jaywalking lopsided shadows. I’m running my A/C, and it warms me up; my windows are fogging and freezing from the inside-out; it’s 10pm with essays due at midnight, yet things felt slower, and the little things didn’t add up. Stuff just felt, okay, despite all the obstacles, but I’d probably point that relief in the direction of Bark Psychosis’ Hex.
Amidst the early-’90s boom of post-rock – spearheaded by the titans of Talk Talk, the Durutti Column and Slint – the genre’s convention was built around these big, peaceful, somber plateaus of atmosphere and tension, not yet completely swallowed by the sour, angsty tinge of existentialism brought on by bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor or Swans; there was still much in the way of infancy with the genre. Things still felt serene, relaxed, melancholy, but in a way that wasn’t too oppressive, yet distinct from the rock zeitgeist at the time – whose big bands like Radiohead, Nirvana and R.E.M. were upbeat, catchy and certainly radio-marketable.
In the beginning, the term “post-rock” generally meant the familiar rock sounds of then, fusing with new, exciting, yet nuanced and slow-paced alterations to the norm, and British writer Simon Reynolds consistently gets the credit for first coining this phrase, which funnily enough, appeared inside his review of “Hex,” written originally for the record’s release back in March of 1994.
The record leaned into the sparse, art-rock jazziness that Talk Talk used on those monumental albums Laughing Stock and Spirit of Eden, but introduced brilliant – yet not overindulged – tinges of dub, ambient and dream pop.
If I were to believe my delusions, then the effect of Hex was seen pretty immediately: tracks like “Big Shot,” with its reggae-adjacent mid-bass gallops, breathy vocals and almost trip-hop drum rhythms, sound incredibly like the beats and ambiance of Bowery Electric’s Beat, released two years later in ’96. Pygmalion by shoegaze patient zeros Slowdive came only a year later in ‘95, but its sound leans like a nearing magnet to the steel pole of Hex, with its wide-open spaces of guitar fuzz, washed out, echoey singing and feathery, dry drums.
Post-rock and shoegaze aside, thee slowcore bands – Duster, Codeine, Bluetile Lounge, Red House Painters – had much to grab hold of with Hex; also, its sound seems like the precursor for the scape of online hypnagogia – Dean Blunt, James Ferraro, Oneohtrix Point Never – and the resurgence – by way of TikTok – with the phenomenal viralability of slacker-rock-adjacent doomer tunes – like again: Slint, Slowdive and Duster in addition to Have a Nice Life.
Far reaching, perhaps, yet Hex tapped into some bodily devotion in the form of the future of post-rock – perhaps ambient altogether. Though it was very obscure, and potentially hadn’t reached the aforementioned groups’ hands until after they released their opuses, the tonality and mood of Hex is just so personal, delicate, lonely and undeniably comforting. It feels like company, like a companion, something very real and alive without ever overstaying its welcome, open and welcoming itself.
To pivot briefly, in an incredibly disconnected world, I find myself always returning to the ’90s; something about the last remnants of analog, and the budding age of digital, it feels almost like a memory I never quite got to have, but not as separated as the ’80s and back where I can’t quite imagine myself in those times. The ’90s are believably familiar. So, those ambient techno, post-rock, trip-hop firebombs that were the ’90s felt incredibly intentional, built-upon and curated, traits of which are some of my most predisposed predispositions.
This nauseously reiterated ’90s era of post-rock I find to be quite human; it’s rich with this idea of staying up late and cranking out lush, druggy tunes, free of commitment or implication. For a taste of this on Hex, you should only have to listen to the glistening harmonica and soothing bass tones of “Absent Friend,” the delicate Eno and Frippian soundscapes of “Pendulum Man,” or the angsty, commiserating, cavernous ruminations on “Fingerspit.”
Somehow, I have yet to mention “A Street Scene,” which I guess is apt to loop back on the earlier scene of snowed-over streets. It’s a visual record, much like a painting; it unfolds around you, in swath landscapes of roping avenues, dark alleys and murky puddles flashed by the reflection of neon and halide; this is a very transportation-worthy record, best enjoyed on your commute, but particularly something where you’re not in control. It’s a fantastic soundtrack for the bus, train, a flight or even walking; illustrating the world around you – so sure of itself, vivid, cathartic and transportive in its own regard.
Genres, descriptions and decades aside, it’s a grateful thing to have, because you feel safe in the hands of Hex – which is receiving a very appreciated affordable repress this October. It’s simply a poignant release, and if you haven’t heard it yet, you’re in for a treat!
