To my knowledge, “Simulacrum” is the first single that New York’s Ken Wohlrob — known for his work in defunct doomers Eternal Black as well as the hardcore-minded End of Hope, the pandemic-era remote project Swarm of Flies and the nascent riffery of Northern Heretic‘s two-to-date singles (posted here and here) — has issued under his own name.

Released today through Bandcamp and probably a bunch of other scattered digital outlets, “Simulacrum” swells from its initial fade-in to a six-plus-minute procession of melodic guitar drone, neither minimal in construction or dispassionate as that kind of thing sometimes can be. And while the release info I’ve cut and pasted below is somewhat abstract, so is the song, and that I assume is part of the (friggin’) point. More aural sculpture than soundscape, it howls around synthesizer complement and leaves no shortage of room for the listener to get lost in its contemplative spaces, but has a defined course and forward progression in addition to offering something different from anything any of Wohlrob‘s bands have done before. I take the fact that “Simulacrum” makes me curious about both it — how many layers of guitar/keys are there, which layer was built on first, how long did it take for it to be recorded, when did it feel done and why, on and on — and about what’s to come from Wohlrob as good signs.

Maybe you’ll feel the same, but there’s only one way to find out. Take a pause to open your mind and focus your attention, then hit play and enjoy:

KEN WOHLROB – “Simulacrum”

A song can be a slippery thing.
It can have no structure while still being bound to consistency.
It can be sinister, but also beautiful.
It can allow you space to think, moving into the background, but it can still enforce its presence.
It can feel immovable, while it can feel as if it’s slithering away, unable to be held.
Its components can be distinct, while its layers can melt into one another.
It can sound familiar, yet unlike anything you’ve ever heard.
It can have roots, but be unmoored from the past.
It can borrow, cheat, and steal, while being pure and unique.
It is a sum of its parts, but the parts don’t define it.
It can engage the brain, but defy understanding.
It can be one thing one minute, another thing the next
But it should infect you…

Otherwise, what’s the friggin’ point?

There are guitars. They are synthesizers. They are effects. Slivers of old songs and styles that have been lurking in my brain, sitting in the unconscious, waiting to be deployed. Some influences overt, others indistinguishable. This was where my brain was at during the moments the song was recorded. It was not planned. Nor written. It was cobbled together from rapid impulses and dredged old thoughts.

Hope you dig it.

releases May 3, 2024
Written, performed and produced by Ken Wohlrob
Recorded at Quatre Cagne, Mohegan Lake, NY
February 2024
Obsidian Sky Records #009

https://www.instagram.com/kenwohlrob/
https://soundcloud.com/kwohlrob/
linktr.ee/kwohlrob