I’ve had a lot of conversations recently about how both the aesthetic and the social aspects of noise can be alternately welcoming and alienating. There’s so much to be said on the subject, but this isn’t the time nor the place. I’m not trying to be vague. I just want to give due respect to the simplicity of Total Sweetheart’s credo, their beautifully succinct solution to this complicated problem: noise is about kindness, respect, friendship. Community. Since 2022’s debut Early to Bed the duo of Texas veterans Nathan Golub (Ascites, BLJ) and Ryan Jones (Struggle Session) has made their stance clear with a string of wholesome declarations, from the straightforward statements of Being Nice to People Is Cool and Loud Sounds, Friendly Faces to the nostalgia and familial warmth of Better Half and A Country Drive. But it all seems to have led up to this new tape, fittingly released by beloved boutique imprint Handmade Birds as part of the ambitious Black Alchemy batch.
The Great Southern Kindness is a radical manifesto for handshakes and hugs in a scene overrun with anger and exploitation. Don’t be fooled—it has sonic extremity in spades, the muscle to back up the message. The pair’s sprawling array of modular electronics has never been this high-powered, or this detailed. As always, there’s a gestural ease to the proceedings that echoes the most abrasive of tabletop improvised music duos (think Rehberg/Schmickler or Nakamura/Yan), an assured, open-eared amble that carries supercharged synth cacophony like it’s a cloud of dandelion wisps. After an apt introduction by Longmont Potion Castle’s own Buford Clifford (an unsurprising sample choice if you know these yahoos), “Cowboys from Heck” minces a briar patch’s worth of sound sources every second, knitting a quilt so dense it tackles you with its loving weight. The B side diptych sounds like construction site psychedelia, so tactile it’s hazardous. “Post-harsh” is a term that gets thrown around every now and then, but usually to refer to projects quite different than Total Sweetheart, who deconstruct the tradition from the roots up while still honoring its tenets and tropes. A “Vulgar Display of Positivity” indeed.
Copies are mostly (deservingly) sold out in the States; looks like Scream and Writhe (Canada) and Silken Heart (Germany) still have some.
Noise Not Music 