Only Now
ETERNAL WRATH
Self-released
Considering that the promotional text accompanying the new ETERNAL WRATH EP includes the line “FUCK ALL SCUM,” it’s fair to say that Only Now is tapping into a pretty deep well of anger. (As a longtime Bay Area resident who’s had a front-row seat while the region’s tech overlords indulge their god complexes and mercilessly pursue the optimization of seemingly everything, his fury is more than justified.)
For several years now, the Berkeley-based producer has been offering up some of the most fearsome tunes in the game, vacillating between scorched-earth Indian rhythms and harrowing patches of industrial noise. ETERNAL WRATH contains some of both, and opens strong with “My War (Bodies of the Wicked Version),” a distortion-riddled smasher that pushes every level far into the red—and sounds all the better for it. There are shades of Slikback in what Only Now is doing, although he actually flashes a bit more rhythmic dexterity, employing the percussive sounds of the damaru, dhad dhol, dholak, tabla and other South Asian instruments to create what he proudly refers to as “white-hot Punjabi speaker melters.” The EP’s feverishly churning title track is another one of those melters, and one that adds dramatic strings and woodwinds to its hair-raising assault.
At the other end of the spectrum is “Black Wind Pt.3,” a slow-brewing number on which Only Now eschews beats altogether. Channeling his inner Jóhann Jóhannsson, he conjures an elaborate orchestral suite—and then fills it with dread and static. Even so, the song has something of a spectral feel, as does EP closer “Life As a Watcher,” though the latter exudes a much more menacing vibe, its jagged undulations ultimately sounding like the howls of a poltergeist. The track has little to do with the dancefloor, but one of ETERNAL WRATH’s key lessons is that Only Now’s staggering musical potency is not location-dependent.