Premiere: “The New Now”, Abyss X and the Mythological Gaze

Arts

May 26

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“The New Now” unfurls into echo-ed corridors, stalked by fervor and laced with the signature operatics of underground artist Abyss X, a taste of what’s to come. The upcoming album, INNUENDO, is a 10-track opus, wrapping listeners with tenderest tendrils, then pulling along a turbulent path that revels and releases in its raw candor of trip-hop and ambient atmosphere. A snake-like seduction of the soul, her debut LP is a primo soundtrack to accompany the bold tone of Abyss X’s visual work. What begins as a seedling, sparked by an aesthetic or aural ghost, propels towards attempts, in which Abyss X brings brutality and beauty to the altar.

“Love Altercation”, the first single and video from INNUENDO, exemplifies this actualization. Directed and edited by the artist herself, Abyss X showcases her esoteric talent for cinematographic caress, video production long under her belt before making music professionally. The measured movement, as if a study of sex magick and sacred poetic text, gives power to each photographic frame. This is the Abyss X way.

Hailing from Crete, a strong theme of Goddess energy has consciously affected the artist. Emotionally-charged connection to the embodiment of environment mirrors a similarity of the means in which dance + music travels through the home of a body. “I experienced the island life for most of my upbringing. There's something about living by the sea that affects you as a person, the smell of salt in the air overtakes the sense of pollution and triggers a longing feeling with wild intentions to travel far”, Abyss X explains. “I move quite a lot geographically and each place I've ever stayed in has left a little ‘dent’ in my psyche and inevitably in my work.”

Each piece of music finds itself attributed to a different location, each experience informing the sonic-frames of each song. “The New Now” is just one of many experimental forages into Abyss X’s pin of feeling to sound, an exploratory trajectory as acid-laced as it is occult-immersed, within the tomes of INNUENDO. “My visual work formulates around the concept of the gaze towards the female body and the variety within people's perception of body language and facial expression,” Abyss X comments. “The cathartic nature of emotional discharge is something I often try to explore musically and visually, always under a veil of curiosity and sometimes for my personal mental relief. Emotional discharge is a way to seek one's identity and place in the world but I guess there's also a fair amount of ego running through an artist's practice. The entity of the fierce woman somehow lurks in my mind throughout my audiovisual approach.”

The influence of the mythological, mystical, classical are of particular interest, too, her relationship with the Earth, nature and reality perhaps the strongest hold on Abyss X’s playful and curious heart/mind connection: “Mythology is an uncensored depiction of the world as it would exist without all social restrictions. I'm fascinated by the ancient as I feel like the earlier you travel in human history, the more raw and true the human perception of the world had been. They knew how to make meaning of the world around them. Now, we are constantly struggling to deviate from internal and external chaos.” In the modern world, where communication is cruxed by a lack of charm, Abyss X creates with mystique in mind. To Abyss X, there is a future in reclaiming and reinventing the power of the femme and ancient.

Previous works have been building annually with precision, each full of complexities and courage: “Priers and Liars” (2019), the Pleasures of the Bull EP (2018), “Gangsters Were Weeping” (2017), beginning at her Mouthed EP (2016). Though in lack at the moment, Abyss X’s live performances have been key to her keep with the community. Releases on Rabit's Halcyon Veil and Aisha Devi’s Danse Noire, friendship and collaboration with Juliana Huxtable, Dis Fig, Rui Ho and more, Abyss X organized the intimate Nature Loves Courage Festival in a very remote location on her home island of Crete.

Salivating with juxtaposition, from frantic fury to the sensual and sacred, her upcoming full length will be available June 26. Later in 2020, remixes by DJ Rosa Pistola, Rui Ho, House of Kenzo, SOPHIE and Gabber Eleganza + others will be available.

Follow Abyss X on Spotify, Soundcloud, Bandcamp and Instagram.
Photographs by Orograph

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Sunni Johnson is the Arts Editor of WUSSY and a writer, zinester, and musician based in Atlanta, GA.

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