“It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.”
This time-honored truism applies to all aspects of life: love, relationships, work, leisure, the ideals of the Knights Radiant, the very act of living itself. It applies to art, too. Sometimes it’s not the final product that gives art its meaning, but the process behind its creation.
That these kind of fuzzy, inspirational-poster thoughts come to mind while listening to the noisy, jagged, and oft-pummeling new record from The Demix speaks to the record’s unlikely power. Arrival isn’t just the latest release from the veteran Milwaukee experimental/electronic provocateur, it’s a harrowing voyage through darkness and light, ugliness and beauty. Even the EP’s name suggests a destination and a journey. Take that voyage now:
“This is some of the music I’ve been playing in my live sets over the past year or so, with releasing these I wanted to try to preserve the raw over-driven grittiness that comes out in my live performances,” says the man behind The Demix, Paul Demix. “These ideas, riffs, parts or whatever we want to call them have been through many trials and errors and playing them live before settling on their final recorded versions really brought these pieces together. It’s been a longer while than I thought since I released any music but I think Arrival represents where I’m at and I’m excited to share it with you. Thanks for listening.”
Demix isn’t kidding about the long time between releases; his last record, Havoc Run, came out in 2016. Happily, his long-running MELT experimental/electronic series has been going strong, and will celebrate the CD release of Arrival on Saturday, March 30 at Club Garibaldi. Hot Science, Ipaghost, and Frownzy will play in support.
“Join us for a night of experimental jungle dub, spooky funhouse toons, alien beat wizardry and explosive audio cinema,” Demix says. It’ll be quite the journey.
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