Cathars, by X Harlow

Cathars

by X Harlow

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Full Digital Discography

34

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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Cathars, Community Guidelines, Sufi Service, Change?, Void Function, Endless Kindness, Trope Insurance, XP, and 26 more. , and , .

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Cathars LTD Edition Cassette
Cassette + Digital Album
Limited run of cassettes for X Harlow's Cathars. Tapes will ship after album is released.

Includes unlimited streaming of Cathars via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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1.	Apparitioner 02:53	buy track
2.	Light Is Gone 04:33	buy track
3.	Credentes 02:40	buy track
4.	Lost in Her House 02:16	buy track
5.	Glass Pieces 03:29	buy track
6.	Metempsychosis 02:13	buy track
7.	She Is Found 03:26	buy track

about

Sweat Equity is pleased to present the latest in an ongoing series of concept-based EPs by New York's X Harlow, né Justin Schmidt, marking a continuation of Schmidt's interest in densely-layered audio collage, pop abstractions and the low-end power of contemporary club music. As part of the ballistic “dark freestyle” project Blu Anxxiety, Schmidt's sonic palette has long operated between serrated, synthetic tones and a focus on the political and social landscape of the modern era. Yet where Blu Anxxiety channels its vision outwards, exploring police brutality, violence and alienation, X Harlow takes on more abstracted inquiries into human nature and history with soaring pads, heavily edited samples and complex rhythms. Mixing the tropes of industrial and noise with rattling subs and arrangements that call to mind the late hours of 00's UK bass (think the deeper reaches of Actress's catalog, or Burial), the record is a nuanced meditation on electronic music as a method to dissociate from the present and explore an expansive state of being through looking back in history.

The second entry in a Triptych of records dwelling around medieval philosophy and mysticism, Cathars takes its name from a gnostic subsect of Christianity that openly challenged the Catholic Church at the height of the Middle Ages. Prioritizing asceticism and teaching that all human spirits were angels, in sexual equality, the group was ultimately eradicated by the Catholic Church, burned alive in the Siege of Montségur (which appears on the cover of the tape).

Cathars is by far Schmidt's most introspective work with tracks like "Metempsychosis" using hypnotic arrangements of medieval choral and "Credentes" twisting vocals through a landscape of chiming percussion samples. This medieval conceptual arc is paired with Schmidt's own autobiographical moments of darkness during the fall of 2020 and subsequent harsh winter. Schmidt left New York to take care of a family member in the midst of a mental health crisis, unable to be aided by a collapsing medical infrastructure during the pandemic. "She is Found" is a collage recording made as they perform a familiar piano work. Other tracks find Schmidt exploring their own suffering after a painful failed hip surgery during the same period. Coupling moments of lyrical ambience with the clattering rhythms and anxious string arrangements of more club-ready tracks like "Light is Gone," the record sees Schmidt working through the pain and isolation of the past year in the only way they could find: looking back into history and finding comfort in the endurance of the human spirit.

The record releases October 22d.

credits

released October 22, 2021

Recorded at The Chicken Hut in the Winter of 2020
Mastered by Andrew Nerviano
Artwork and Layout by Emil Bognar
Lettering and Font by Greg Henderson
Saxophone on “Apparitioner” and “Lost in Her House” by Kate Mohanty
Piano on “She Is Found” by Mary LaFosse

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