Often when an artist enters the WXPN studio, we’ve a basic sense what it’s going to seem like. A line of microphones, a mixture of devices and amplifiers, warm-toned spots shining down from the lighting rig or up from the ground. That’s not what the experimental Philadelphia trio Abbey had in thoughts. Utilizing our efficiency area as a clean canvas, the band reworked the room with deep purple lights, a projector loaded with frenetic and macabre imagery, and an enormous display screen as a backdrop, opening a shocking portal to their world for this thrilling Key Studio Session.
Abbatia hit our radar this winter after they performed an all-Philly invoice on the Ukie Membership with punk outfit The Dregs and hard-hitting rapper Ghais Guevara. Their versatile sound acted as a bridge between the opposite two artists, calling to thoughts boundary-blurring performers like Demise Grips and JPEGMAFIA — or, going additional again, 9 Inch Nails and Dälek. Although the band’s set at that present drew strongly on their debut EP Crimson Roomlaunched final fall, the trio’s historical past runs a lot deeper, and the following chapter is already imminent.
Bandmates Syd Solanke, Jazz Vicaris, andDroogie are life-long buddies who grew up collectively within the metropolis’s Roxborough part and have been creating music and artwork collectively since childhood. With a bond solidified over bizarre cinema, immersive video video games, and imagined worlds animated on their laptops, their inventive imaginative and prescient has coalesced right into a multimedia frenzy that’s typically nihilistic, usually chaotic, however at all times in service of elevating the power in no matter area they occupy, reacting to a relentlessly bleak world with noise and motion.
On this set, Abbatia performs three highlights from “Crimson Room” — the commercial party-rocker “System Failure,” which they launched a really wild music video for on Halloween, the explosive rager “World Large Internet,” and the closing demise march of “Dreadnaught” — but additionally offers us a beneficiant serving to of recent materials to preview their subsequent chapter, which shall be launched someday within the not-too-distant future on A2B2, the label run by Demise Grips’ Andy Morin. The brand new songs vary from vibey digital tones and lovelorn lyrics (“AMs”) to moments of chilling cacophony and catharsis (“Exhume”), and we are able to’t wait to listen to what comes subsequent.
Lose your self in Abbatia’s complete Key Studio Periods efficiency under, and for extra, give them a comply with on Instagram.
