INDIE | A party for Implodes’ overdue debut
“I was really into black metal at the time. A lot of it is atmospheric and almost like shoegaze,” he says. “I wanted it to be kind of like the Jesus and Mary Chain, but almost a metal version of that.” Written on acoustic guitar and then cloaked in distortion, this material became the basis for Implodes.
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Though Black Earth has been available less than a month, most of its songs have been in Implodes’ repertoire in one form or another since the first few weeks of the band’s existence. Some have been released already too, albeit on cassette and in extremely small editions—in July 2009, for instance, Plustapes issued a self-titled collection of Implodes demos a couple weeks before the group made its live debut at the Whistler.
Dustin Drase of Plustapes first heard guitarist Ryley Walker a couple of years ago: Drase was selling stuff at the record fair at the Pitchfork Music Festival, and Walker came up to him and gave him a cassette. “We listened to it in the car on the way home, and at first I thought the kid was possibly fucking with me and he just straight-up dubbed a Fahey record,” says Drase. “Listening to it again later, I was able to pick up some of the subtle flubs that made me realize this was actually just him doing a home recording.”
