- A still from the video for “Iron Gates”
Two men kiss in the video for Dylan Wright’s song “Iron Gates,” but that’s not the queerest thing about it. The local singer-songwriter throws both “gay” and “queer” into his Bandcamp tags right next to “folk” and “acoustic,” which prompts the question: If “queer” is a genre, what does it mean? This year has seen high-profile releases from artists all struggling to come up with an answer, from Perfume Genius’s industrial glam to Owen Pallett’s violin-streaked angst to Arca’s dysmorphic glitches. All of them shudder against musical form just like queer identities bristle against the social form of the heterosexual family. Dylan Wright’s resistance is a little more subtle—his debut solo album, As a Ghost, folds love in with death, tracing the parallels between devotion and disease.
Dylan Wright’s As a Ghost is out now on Bandcamp. He plays Wang’s Bar tonight.