released May 26, 2017

There’s nothing here but heat and dust, dust and light, time and space—no great upheaval beyond the mute accumulation of aeons, no setback beyond the routine catastrophe of morning sunrise. Daylight sears and returns every speck of rock and sand, every pore and follicle of human pride and daily grime, each miserable stick of charred inedible plant life back to the perfect sterility of lunar space. What passion could be conceived here, what sin, what germ? In the shade it’s 129 degrees. On the asphalt it’s 180. In such climate the body can lose a gallon of water in just a few hours. As the brain begins to coagulate it envisions water everywhere. Across the road, the dead lattice of the dwarf trees twists, blurs and pulses like seaweed inhaling the crests of coastal waves. The undulating layers of fossilized strata stain the cliffs with the leak and drip of virgin springs. The highway mirage ripples cold with alpine refreshment. The pale granite domes high above the scrub pines scream of melting snow. The coyote rotting off the roadside reeks of healing sulfur hot springs. Water— the last thing you’ll find and the only thing you need.


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The next phase of a long-standing collaboration between pianist John Steven Morgan and drummer Barret Baumgart.

Wreche remains consistent with the duo's earlier minimalist exploration of piano and drum derived gloom however this debut finds the two pushing even harder at the possibilities of genre, luring staccato keys and crushing blast beats into a previously uncharted terrain in which black metal and classical vie for privilege, hope, and death in smog laden basin of suntanned predation and persistent misery.

Black metal from the city of shattered dreams.

“The desert has suddenly become cool... The millennials think it’s authentic."--LA Times

John Steven Morgan--Piano and Vocals
Barret Baumgart--Drums

Recorded at Studio 459 in Los Angeles by John Steven Morgan & Crosby Morgan. All songs written by John Steven Morgan. Mixed and Mastered by Colin Marston at Menegroth, The Thousand Caves, Queens, NY. Art & Design by Max Moriyama & Athena Wisotsky.

Handsmade [OAKLAND, CA], 2020
Acephale Winter Productions, 2020
Fragile Branch Records, 2017