Surachai

Embodiments of every genre gather for six weeks of summer fun: Hardcore grills burgers as Ska guzzles root beer; Classic Rock steers the boat as Indie Rock trails behind on an inner tube; “Where’s Seapunk?” asks Vaporwave, and everyone has a good laugh. EuroHouse runs around the grounds passing out invitations to a Memorial Day Rave. R&B, Detroit Techno, even Gamelan all get the nod. “But you guys can’t come,” EuroHouse tells Black Metal and Modular Synthesis, snatching the embossed invites from under their noses at the last second. “You’ll just scare everyone off.” Mod-Synth scoffs, “We don’t need ‘em.” The two flee to a cabin on the outskirts of the grounds. Inside, a wood-paneled chamber overflows with rack-mounted hardware and patch cables. Mod-Synth points to an empty corner. “We’ve got room for some half-stacks over there.” Montage: Black Metal moving gear in; the two pals hunching over a sequencer as LED lights dance across their faces; a tremolo picking workshop featuring chalkboard wrist diagrams; EDM and Nü-Metal making out at the Memorial Day Rave; genres heading home to their parents at camp’s end; our heroes shutting themselves in and woodshedding through the winter; finally high fiving over what they build together.

A co-founder of Chicago-based synth collective Trash Audio, composer Surachai Sutthisasanakul has fused avant-garde synthesis and metal across a number of vinyl and digital-only EPs since 2010. Embraced, the most recent release under the Surachai moniker, represents a labor of love for Sutthisasanakul: his detailed statement follows his creative process from composing to tracking a full band of collaborators to putting it on wax. The album finds four guitars, howled vocals, bass, and blast beats cohering into the near-baroque arrangements and melodic odysseys we’ve come to expect from contemporary USBM heavyweights Wolves In The Throne Room, Krallice, and Ash Borer. Surachai juxtaposes all this against squeals, drones, and fragmented sequences from the Buchla Easel rig of Alessandro Cortini (he of Nine Inch Nails collabs and a forthcoming 2xLP on Important Records), and maxes out the overwhelming mix with the help of Richard Devine (credited here with Sound Design).

Let’s pretend we all knew Modular Synthesis and Black Metal were best friends this whole time. Embraced slays.

– Tiny Mix Tapes

If metal had more artists half as adventurous as Surachai Sutthisasanakul, the terrain would be a lot more exciting to traverse. Over the course of three full-length albums and a handful of EPs, the Chicago-based artist has made some of the more perplexing and stimulating sounds the genre could boast, and he made these weird, metallic creations on his own, with no backing band.

But he changed his mind about the collaboration deal going into the third Surachai album “Embraced,” a platter being released on Trash_Audio and Bandcamp, and that he made, for the first time ever, with a full band. It’s not like his audience was clamoring for him to try something different, because this project was moving along nicely, having last checked in with 2011′s tremendous “To No Avail,” a two-track, 21-minute wonder that remains in my listening arsenal to this day. But what the audience wants and what the artist wants don’t have to be the same, and considering Sutthisasanakul is the one in charge of making this art, he needs to follow his whims, and we need to trust him. Luckily doing that pays huge dividends with “Embraced,” one of the fieriest Surachai albums to date.

This three-track, nearly 34-minute album is the beefiest Surachai album to date, and perhaps having extra personnel to help Sutthisasanakul achieve his vision also helped him expand his creativity. The songs are boisterous, aggressive, but also very intelligent, and the closest comparison I can think of to compare this to is Krallice’s work. But that’s only a comparison, as Surachai’s music is completely distinguishable from that band, but if you need to associate it with another group’s sound, there you go. Surachai always changes things up with weird noises, heady programming, and other sonic additions that complement the music and keep you wondering where this is going next. It’s an incredible experience all around, and it’s the best Surachai album to date.

I mentioned the extra cast surrounding Sutthisasanakul, and they are guitarists Shane Prendeville (Guzzlemug, Murmur) and Andrew Markuszewski (who you’ll know from his black metal project Avichi, as well as from Nachtmystium and the mighty Lord Mantis), acoustic bassist Tom Kelly (also of Guzzlemug), drummer Charlie Werber (also of Guzzlemug, Murmur), sound designer Richard Devine (Warp, Schematic), and buchla easel player Alessandro Cortini (How to Destroy Angels). That’s a formidable collection of musicians in general, but the fact they’ll all Chicago-based is a little intimidating.

The band launches into “Ancestral,” with dizzying melodies, guitars that are trying to hypnotically warp the mind, and harsh vocals that sound savage and determined. This is where the Krallice comparison first feels right, but just as they lean into that weird, spacey black metal headspace, it comes to a halt, and programming slips in, treating everything with a chilly woosh. Then it blows back up again into a full storm, only to slip back into an alien calm that takes us into “Sentinel.”

That song also begins with a breezy frame of mind, but before long a doom-infested landslide takes place, and out of that rises shoegazey guitars and more crazed howls. There’s a nice long section in the middle where everyone plays off each other musically, and it ends in full robotic mode, feeling like someone’s trying to process your emotion in some kind of antiseptic lab. Closer “Surrender” rises from the ashes, still ensconced in the lab but also ready to ramp up its fury to new, frightening levels. A black haze and off-kilter strangeness spill in and change the complexion of the song, going even further into adventurous sonic examinations, sometimes letting chaos back into the picture. But as the song boils seemingly out of control, serenity glides in, the band lets their lungs fill with air, and you’re allowed to exhale with them as the album comes to its conclusion.

Surachai’s journey continues to go into unexpected corners, and it’s one of the reasons this project remains so rewarding to follow. On top of that, Sutthisasanakul’s creativity know no bounds, and whether he’s by himself or with an incredibly accomplished group of players, he always comes up with compositions that keep you engaged and enthralled. This is his best work to date, though I don’t question he’ll top himself next time around. It’s just what he does.

– MeatMeatMetal

The Hellgoat’s Take (8.5/10): Off-kilter for sure but in the case of Embraced, unlike his other records, he let outside musicians play with him and I think that helped reign in his vision nicer than on previous records. The three tracks on the disc are vicious and dark and definitely push the boundaries of the black metal genre while the electronic touches are more subtle and thought provoking than jolting. Embraced is an album that you really have to dig into and focus on while listening but it’s rewarding in the end.

– Popdose