PREMIERE: DIG YOUR OWN GRAVE WITH THE HAUNTING NEW EP FROM DARK-WAVE/BLACK METAL PROJECT CHOSHECH

It's a tricky thing trying to explain the sense of what it's like to live in a place you probably know about from the news. Made especially tricky, the thing, since, as with all catastrophes, one always tends to feel guilty for not getting it the worst. I grew up in a very Holocaust-aware home, and my grandmother, who was 10-ish when the Nazis invaded Hungary, always downplayed her experience because "it wasn't Auschwitz." No, I'm not making Holocaust comparisons, just trying to situate the problematics of the writing self amid flames that both engulf and threaten to engulf everything and everyone. English is a problem, too, come to think of it. Everything feels fake in English. Which I guess is why when I rebranded this blog in 2019 I decided to stick to the Hebrew logo, despite the fact that 90 percent of what I was to do from that point would be in English.

I suspect that's also why the Hebrew word for "blood," Dam, is featured quite prominently as the title of the new EP from the incredible soul and artist who is Choshech, Shay Mizrachi. Mizrazchi has stuck to Hebrew names for all his releases, including his debut, which, happily to me, was premiered on this exact tepid space in 2019, as well as his beautiful 2022 album, Degel Shakhor (Black Flag). And yet despite that track record there's reason to believe the bloody letters in this current release, dropping next week but available for streaming here below, are especially poignant in their stubborn alien form. Well, alien to some. And that is because we, who have had the fortune/misfortune of growing up in this space, have been living on an alien planet for the last months. A planet with little oxygen, and the soil of which is soaked with all manner of liquids, least of which water. And an air made of terror. And a sun made of violence.

Especially poignant also since the EP itself, in its dirge-like progression and bleak sonic pulse, is entirely a response to life on that planet. A place of almost-always-nearly destruction, of desolation and no future, and of paralyzing fear. For better or for worse, Choshech's blood, who also features fantastic guest appearances from Dorin Hajon (Srefa), Vlad Shusterman (Cruel Wonders, Sleep's Sister), and LYS (夢遊病者/Sleepwalker, with whom Mizrachi had already collaborated in my MILIM KASHOT compilation series, here), is and will be linked to this shit time. But, like most truly great art, will outlive its shit and will allow us, me, to perhaps outlive it as well.

Dam is out April 10, everywhere. Buy it here.