Like Weeds “Plague Dubs Mixtape” is a meditative and usettling experience

This mixtape of quarantine recordings is a perfect soundtrack to the COVID-19 era: a build up with no release in sight.

Described as “a mixtape of tracks recorded for separate releases during the 2020 lockdown”, Plague Dubs has exactly one mode: a stomping electronic kick drum (more like a siren) given a dub treatment of controlled noise and stretches of silence. The four tracks bleed into one another and create an experience of contradictions: crushing but ambient; minimalist but dynamic; slow-moving and yet time seems to disappear as I listen to this.

Like Weeds is the current project of Kenny Sanderson who created harsh noise under the banner of Facialmess for 20 years and while Like Weeds operates in the same circles (he played with Kazumoto Endo in Tokyo just a few days ago) I wouldn’t categorize this as a noise record. It’s a different animal — I wouldn’t call anything this obviously musical “noise” (the style, not the criticism) — but perhaps what it has in common with harsh noise is that its distinctly confrontational. Comparisons abound to things like Wolf Eyes, The Bug, Necro Deathmort, Broken Note, even early Public Enemy (and my phone is filled with a dozen attempts at achieving exactly what these songs manage to do) but what’s different here is that Plague Dubs never gets the party started. It’s pure menace from start to finish like an air raid siren that doesn’t stop even though the bombs never come.

Stream the whole EP below.