Vantablack is the sonic cross-frequency brainchild of Chris Kelso, Nick Hudson, and Stuart Dahlquist. It is dedicated to the invisible obstacle within all of us. An album for the amputated. Featuring the voices of Elle Nash, Timothy Jarvis, Graham Rae, and Brian Evenson.
NICK HUDSON – COMPOSITION, PIANO, PERCUSSION, CIGAR BOX SETAR, VOCALS, PROGRAMMING, STRING AND HORN ARRANGEMENTS, PRODUCTION
CHRIS KELSO – TEXTS, CONCEPTION, PSYCHOPOMP
STUART DAHLQUIST – BASS, ANCHORAGE, BOWED ENTITIES, ARRANGEMENTS, RECITAL, FIELD RECORDING AND MANIPULATION OF THE VIBRATION OF AN AGING WASHINGTON STATE FERRY
CHRISTOPHER MANNING – ALL HORNS
LIZZY CAREY – ALL STRINGS
KIANNA BLUE – ISSA A THANG
ALISTAIR CATTER – ADDITIONAL RECORDINGS
JOE REDTREE, POLINA KOVAL, PASHA KOVAL, CHRISTOPHER MANNING, NICK HUDSON – UNHOLY CHOIR OF THE SEPULCHRE, BATS.
MIXING – NICK HUDSON
DIGITAL MASTER – TOBY DRIVER
VINYL MASTER – GREG HENDLER
COVER ART – CARMEN PALTH
BOBBY LAFOLETTE – INT ART/VOIDHEADS ARTWORK
ART LAYOUT – ENT.DESIGN
Links
Bandcamp – https://vantablack-eternal.bandcamp.com/album/vantablack
Merrigold Independent – https://www.merigoldindependent.com/vantablack
Edging on Death/Bobby Lafolette art – https://www.edgingondeath.com/
Nick Hudson – https://nickhudsonindustries.bandcamp.com/
Stuart Dahlquist – https://www.discogs.com/artist/482964-G-Stuart-Dahlquist?srsltid=AfmBOorGK3TKkFOF0w5dNN3oczbndwFwfE8wYzadE_vU8TziVtvhb0q9
Chris Kelso – www.chris-kelso.com
Voidheads extract – https://apocalypse-confidential.com/2023/05/25/voidheads/
Voidheads comic/novella – https://schismpress.tumblr.com/neuronics
After creating his Black Square painting in 1915, Kazimir Malevich couldn’t eat or sleep for a week. Based on a previous iteration for an opera of poet Velimir Khlebnikov, Malevich’s black square represented the year zero: the destruction of all modern values. Paradoxically, the work was also embryonic and opened him to all future possibilities, an infinity of night. In June 2014, a laboratory known as Surrey NanoSystems, unveiled a new super-black coating known as Vantablack, one of the darkest pigments ever released. The paint gave three-dimensional objects the appearance of two-dimensions or void space.
What is void space? Entering this tenebrous space are Vantablack, a cross-pollination of Sunn O))) bassist Stuart Dahlquist, composer Nick Hudson, and writer Chris Kelso. On their first self-titled release for Merigold Independent, the trio inject soundscapes with nightmarish fragments from Kelso’s novel V0idheads, published last year on Schism Press, and read to striking effect by guest vocalists Elle Nash, Timothy Jarvis, Graham Rae, and Brian Evenson. V0idheads tells the story of a group of adolescents with an amputation fetish and feels reminiscent of the queasy worlds of Charles Burns’ Black Hole or Junji Ito’s dizzying Uzumaki. At one point Nash describes how, “He knelt with his jeans tight over his thighs, exposing gaping void hole to trapped girl,” before bursting into laughter. These blistering ero guromoments take one to something like the recently reissued Love, Emily; Kathy Acker’s spoken word collaboration with industrial band Nox. Total annihilation.
Vantablack opens with lush strings and choral chanting, Hudson utilizing a Tbilisi choir to haunting effect. His compositions feel ritualistic and expansive. Serpentine horns weave throughout creating a chaotic, jazz-like tapestry. Often melancholic, he peppers the soundscapes with chiming percussion and bells, before Dahlquist’s stygian bass drops everything down into a smoke-filled Lethe, liquid swamp of reverb and broken vocals. Burroughs-esque, a voice intones: “Black body pulsed on streets of this town, absorbing electromagnetic radiation with hunger and black bat jackal.” Pipes shudder prettily over obscene descriptions of bodily mutilation. Another voice describes a colonoscopy and seeing, “the fluttering pink islands floating inside us.” On the beautiful artwork from Carmen Palth, a teenager cradles a kitchen knife. The album crawls through the butchered bodies of its adolescents who explain with dry humor, “The more body parts you shed, the more popular you became.”
On the second side of Vantablack, a narrator briefly describes Cartesian dualism: the separation of the material and non-physical. He sees intestines as, “a palpitating nest of worms.” The album builds towards its monolithic endpoint as Dahlquist’s guitar pushes on, pulsating and hypnotic, before splitting into a thundercloud of electronic pulses. The bass returns once more for its sombre epilogue but soon nothing remains except fog. As nocturnal explorers Coil once declared, the universe is a haunted house. Malevich’s Black Square was originally conceived as a coffin of the sun. Where does the internal meet the external? What are the entrails of the sun? Vantablack captures a collective investigation into gaping darkness, similar in collaborative spirit to works like the 1980s no wave compilation A Diamond Hidden in the Mouth of a Corpse. Vantablack’s many players approach a hole in the wall that eats and eats, the sun devoured beneath a black lake. Its many pleasures manage to emulate the seduction of a darkness one can never escape, or as Nash explains, “Whole color spectrum of light lived in this void space, each shade dragged to their darkest gradient, spectrum or radiance. Total light colonization.”
— Review by Matt Kinlin, Foxy Digitalis
Music Video Stills
Interview
Chris K – I’ve wanted to get involved in music for ages. Having been in and out of bands since I was 15, there was always an itch there, or a sense of unfinished business. I actually wrote an album called Influence that was set to be released by Poet Pop records (Ragged Lion) back in 2019. Unfortunately, the head of the label, Edwin Sellors, tragically passed away a week before the album was due out. The label folded shortly thereafter and the album was never formally released. I spent the next few years focusing on writing books, but when I came across Nick’s work I knew he was someone I wanted to work with in a cross-disciplinary way. Nick is as talented a writer as he is musician, and he was able to approach the literary/spoken word side of the project with a refined, critical eye. He maybe even cares as much about writing as he does creating music, which is a really rare gift. It was really just a question I asked him and before I knew it he had started assembling this wonderful troupe of musicians to start building the soundscape (Stuart Dahlquist, a bonafide rock god, being one of them). It went from 0-30 so quickly.
Nick H – Chris and I had been talking frequently since I reviewed his book on early David Cronenberg works and talk inevitably led to collaboration. I’d finished recording my most recent solo record Kanda Teenage Honey in Tbilisi and was eager to compose/record something formally unrelated to “songwriting” in the lull between recording and releasing that album. Chris proposed a series of his startling texts and I set about composing sequence blocks of music geared around their specifically coloured intensities. As I was doing so I started assembling a dream cast of players based on the vague shrieks of abjection coalescing in my mind’s ear. I’d had the first ten seconds of Side One in my head for around a year – the frenzied massed string run hijacked by a thunderous clanging. Was cathartic to get that lunacy out of my system. As someone who’s habitually “the singer” it was emancipating to have Chris’ texts as the “frontman” of the band and to edit and knead the audial sinews into a fleshy miasma befitting of the nuances of the spoken word recordings.
Stuart D – I’m not sure how it happened. Nick (I think it was Nick) must have included me in an email, and a week later Chris kindly sent me a copy of the book. I thought it sounded pretty open ended, like anything thrown into the mix could be utilized. I had some field recordings I’d done that seemed to sit well with the rough music drafts. I’d been rehearsing for a funk thing and was pretty deep into that sound and tried to integrate a bit of pocket into the bass aspect. A few months before Vantablack came along I’d finished work on an as yet unreleased spoken word project with Russell MacEwan (The Atrocity) so the idea of composing over spoken word wasn’t outside of my wheelhouse. Vantablack is a comingling of instrumental voices, hence a much different approach.
How would you describe the Vantablack sound? How is it unique to other projects you’ve been involved in?
Nick H – One aspect that’s unique is that it was composed for the format – two sides of 10” vinyl – meaning each piece would be approximately ten minutes in duration. I collaborate with Stuart in his incredible project Asva, and also work a lot with Toby Driver of Kayo Dot (and always learn a lot while doing each) – so I’m not a stranger to durational or experimental forms, but Vantablack feels *especially* dark, demonically psychedelic and upsetting – I also used many non-obvious instruments in its construction – a bespoke Russian cigar-box setar, a Soviet church bell from a Tbilisi flea market, lots of foley, even the kick drum is in fact me abusing the sustain pedal of an old piano. I know Stuart used his koto on these tracks too and I think some sheet metal? I think I was definitely trying to conjoin frequencies that would have a visceral effect upon the listener. And Stuart’s bass tone and writing is gloriously pulverizing within that remit. Shout-out to the choir of Christopher Manning, Polina Koval, Pasha Koval and Joe Redtree here too – we recorded the choir as a live section in a huge Soviet apartment where a revolutionary Georgian poet had killed himself in the early 20th Century. Christopher also played all the horn parts. Lizzy Carey all the strings. Kianna Blue forged a nauseatingly crunchy digital drone for both sides. And all the readers delivered sheer excellence. Likewise, Carmen Palth’s artwork is fucking amazing.
Stuart D – Vantablack fits nicely into my head. It’s a challenging listen, not unpleasantly so but there’s a lot to hear. It is unique to just about anything I’ve ever heard, much less been involved in. The urge was to provide sounds on the subtle side of the palate, but in this case I kind of let ‘er rip.
Chris K – I agree with Nick and Stuart, the darkness literally has a voice. Much like seeing a film adaptation of your work, Vantablack gives a new layer of depth to the book that’s fuelling it. In a way this feels like the definitive expression of the themes in Voidheads.
What are your plans for the future of the band?
Nick H – I think we’d all very much like to continue issuing Vantablack EPs in volumes and to continue stretching the form. And as Stuart mentioned – if we can invoke the resources and finances to manifest this material in concert form that would be absolutely killer. And I’ve got a video for Side One to finish editing – the shoot of which made my dad’s garage resemble Buffalo Bill’s basement for a few weeks.
Stuart D – I hope we’ll be making another recording, more than just one more. Playing live, now would be quite a thing and I’d love to see Nick and actually meet Chris and the other people involved. Living stateside is kind of shitty when the people you’d love to be working with consistently are so damn far away.
Chris K – We’re already discussing the embryonic stages of volume 2. I’m also hoping to contribute more to it in a musical capacity.
(extract from Vantablack side 1)
Let us start with a boy. Darkness has been animated for him. When he closes his eyes the night becomes a hope-sucking vacuity, motivated and alive. Because, to him, the night is actually broken light vomiting out gamma, resenting the glow from any living thing. To some darkness is just an inanimate metaphor. But not to him. It is living and its heart is vantablack. It lives in the people he loves. Distorting everything. Even in himself. Yet his heart is also haunted by afterimages of light. He has not lost track of hope or the living. Because he knows he can move beyond the body. Escape the darkness imprisoned within.
(Excerpt from Voidheads)
Black body pulsed on streets of his town, absorbing electromagnetic radiation with hunger of black-backed jackal.
—-Man crept into cellar like an aphid shambling into elaborate torture towers of an Amazonian ant. Man had all his limbs intact – veritable icon of flax-haired, strong-boned wellbeing. But he’d been warned not to go near cellar because according to his mother there was an evil-fucking-hell-monster living down there. She seemed pretty serious about it. In fact, hia mother had mental breakdown about it. His older brother had started mutilating his own body in name of an immortal status that the man tried his best to comprehend, so had most people in his High School. People were having legs and arms and genitals surgically removed by v0idspace and it seemed more body parts you shed, more popular you became. It was ritual accomplishment to achieve partial self-enforced paraplegia.
(Side one – Excerpt from Voidheads, unpublished/edited out of final manuscript/read by Elle Nash)
Now he was staring down tunnel of raw doom-flesh that led to nowhere. Portal into nothingness. Beast was simply v0id. Starving sentient misanthropic hole in wall. What brought me to this location no one knew, but I would not vacate until I had nourished myself to satisfaction. Vanity of future, eclipsing body. All it would cost was your consciousness and your mortal soul. All I would leave behind were headless corpses of child princes. He would submit to me and he would gather more food.
—-They seemed to walk in silence for around half an hour until two teens got to neighbourhood of single-floored slum shacks. Gun reports cracked in near distance. Trashcan lids clattered. Faint screams echoed into night air like coil of woodsmoke. He stopped outside one of camelback homes, dilapidated dwelling that ran flush with sidewalk. Shack was haphazardly painted aqua green and presented canvas of chipped wooden brackets and rusted cast iron vents. There were relics of effluence and neglect strewn across front yard. An oil drum throning mound of slag. Trash crunched underfoot. An overpass arced above gables and charged evening air with angry exhaust fumes. Place stank of acrid burning and ozone.
*
p.s. Hey. Today writer and other genre maestro Chris Kelso gives you a formal introduction to a music project in album form that he has co-created with Nick Hudson and Stuart Dahlquist plus the vocal stylings of Elle Nash, Brian Evenson and others. Richness has naturally resulted, but don’t take my word for it. Investigate the proceedings and enjoy yourselves appropriately. And thank you, Chris, for thinking of this venue. ** Dominik, Hi!!! No, thank you. Ah, good old Iggy before he became everybody’s favorite loveable, harmless pre-punk grandpa figure. Today love is going to let himself have shitty tastes in music long enough to say … Shaggin’ in the elevator (Whoa), Lingerie second floor (Whoa, yeah), She said, “Can I see you later” (Whoa), “And love you just a little more?” (Whoa, yeah), I kinda hope we get stuck, G. ** Misanthrope, Actually, I didn’t ask him, but he probably doesn’t in fact want to read it. He’s very busy. Au revoir with a passionate French kiss to that snow. ** _Black_Acrylic, I think that was him rocking the hat. You know your hats, that’s one thing for absolutely sure. The TP second season has a bit of a lull in the middle when Lynch backed off for a bit, but then he came back and it gets … whoa. ** Darbz, Oh, dude, it’s no problem at all. Don’t sweat it. Anyway, being confused is possibly my favorite state of mind, so I should thank you. And in fact I will or, rather, just did. I do miss having gotten your Rimbaud thoughts if you don’t mind spilling them again, but no pressure at all. You’re the best. Hugs, pal. ** James Bennett, Oh, wow you found that Akerman film. That’s amazing. I’ve been jonesing to rewatch it. Thank you a lot. Everyone, One of my favorite Chantal Akerman films, ‘Portrait of a Young Girl at the End of the 60s in Brussels’, which I had thought was nigh impossible to see, has been discovered by James Bennett semi-hiding in the realms of the great archive.org, so, if anyone ever wants to try it, it’s here. Have you read Foster-Wallace’s non-fiction? If not, I would highly recommend ‘A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again’. It’s great, and it’s not a demanding read. Thanks so much! xo. ** Steeqhen, Eight hours of sleep and recurring double espressos while you’re upright? You are in the running for the most busy person I have met in my life at this point, I think. I wear the same schlumpy clothes all the time, but I admire people who use clothing and their hair to present themselves as someone they wish other people would believe they are. But you know I’m very into failed ambitions. Submit, yeah, why not, and the necessary external luck from me. ** jay, Happy Valentines Day. I assume you’re celebrating given you’re in the so-called city of love astride your beloved. Hm, that’s a dilemma, yeah. Historically, I found playing just at least the slightest bit hard to get can keep love burbling longer than constant proximity? My Valentines Day definitely needs lacing, so whatever strength will be valued. And, what do you know, I suddenly want to eat some chocolate, so it’s working already. Thank you. I’m guessing your VDay needs no outside interference. ** James, Yep, like clockwork. Orange ideally. My blog sees your fist bump and gives you two of them. Eventually you’ll know yourself to a T because that’s how aging works, and then you’ll miss wondering and worrying at least a little. I love peanut butter. Smooth preferably. On the most basic slice of white bread possible. No jelly, thank you. I wonder if when it was Stephen people pronounced it Stee-fffun. That might’ve gotten old. GbV is super swell live, yes. Unfortunately you’ll probably never the chance IRL because Pollard hates Europe. He says it’s because the beer over here sucks, but I’m sure there are other reasons. My VDay will be highly non-loveydovey, but that’s the way I like it. So if yours is loveless, you’re not alone. ** Charalampos, I started my GbV adjacent life with ‘Fast Japanese Spin Cycle’, so I went backwards to ‘Propellor’. Um, I think I used some lyric excepts from a song or two in ‘Guide’, but I can’t remember. It has some of my all-time favorite GbV songs on it: ‘Quality of Armor’, ‘Exit Flagger’, ’14 Cheerleader Coldfront’, ‘On The Tundra’, a.o. I’m solo today too. Well, I’m seeing a friend, but he’s just a friend. I guess it both makes sense and is crazy too, like most good things. Paris has your back. ** Lucas, Whoop! I like your poem. It has kind of Alice Notley feel and build, but differently sharpened. Kudos. Playing basketball seems like it could do a decent job of erasing stress and discomfort? I have no idea, but that’s the vibe I’m getting. Paris awaits your possible soonish appearance. ** Steve, Always the big problem with cults, yeah. They’re like Goth music. I know people who think they’re fulfilling their artistic needs by doing things like that, but time and the critical establishment and ultimately the art market will tell. The Bejar sounds exciting. I think I can get it today. I’ve never been able to get with Father John Misty. He just sounds like a threadbare Elton John to me. ** HaRpEr, Holy shit, your film is finished! I’m used to my own filmmaking tempo, and that’s fast! Whoa! I’m obviously excited to watch it post-haste. Everyone, the great HaRpEr has made a film, and you can even watch it. It’s called ‘Twink Death Gorgeous’ and it is five minutes long. HaRpEr cautions that it’s an experiment, but experiment is a holy term around this place, so … without further ado, watch ‘Twink Death Gorgeous’ right here. See you over there telepathically. So cool! I’ll share my take, of course. I stupidly only bought, like, three of the Hanuman books back then because a friend of mine was the person who ran the press, and I thought he would give me copies, but he didn’t! Motherfucker! They’re reprinting some of them, but they’re still pretty expensive. ** Uday, I think, and I think you probably know, that your friend probably just wants to have intimate company while he’s having his problems, so I feel sure that whatever you’re doing is a help. Kristof should help too. What is the literary society? What does being its president entail? Congrats, btw. ** Justin D, My pleasure, of course. I really like the way ‘Mouthwashing’ looks at first peek. Cool graphics and vibe. Thanks. I’ll go find out where it lives and maybe knock on its door, or I guess I mean pick its lock. My day was alright. I’m headlong into revising the script of Zac’s and my new film, so I’m largely preoccupied with that these days, and it’s tricky, but I think I’m nailing it. How was VDay? ** Corey, Hey, Corey, Good to have you back too. That P. Adams Sitney book is great, yeah. He’s terrific. And his films are interesting too. I did a Day about him ages ago that I should restore. Everyone, courtesy of Corey, P. Adams Sitney’s great book ‘Visionary film: the American avant-garde, 1943-2000’ is available to be read on archive.org if you’re interested. Here. Me? As I just typed above, I’m working on the script for Zac’s and my new film mostly, and doing prep work for ‘Room Temperature’s’ upcoming premiere. That’s largely me. We submitted ‘RT’ to Crossroads too. Good luck to us both. You do sound quite fired up. Awesome! All of it. And possibly dancing to boot. Your whole body is on fire inside and out. Whoa. ** nat, Glad you think you like Jacobs. Hm, well, upping the vampire connection would probably have an immediate reader eye-focusing effect? It’s going well, so, yeah, trust that. Calamari is great. Derek White, its boss, should get some kind of major prize or grant or something. I can believe The Bible is well written. I know smart fellow atheists who say so. I don’t know why my schools never assigned it. Those two are titans, and currently kind of overlooked titans, and those readers should be really worth your time. Actually maybe I’ll get the Davenport one, come to think of it. ‘Zenless Zone Zero’ is a game where you ‘beat up people with gambling characteristics’? Did I get that right? How odd. Potentially good odd. Thanks for the alert. ** Bill, He’s well worth visiting. I think Escobar might be the first Bo Huston Prize winner? I’m not totally sure. Here it won’t stop raining. I’ve never liked the sun as much as I theoretically do right now. ** Right. Your invitation/task for today has already been explained to you at the top, so be here accordingly, thank you. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 