Review: Bassvictim "Forever"

While Bassvictim only started releasing music in 2023, the duo has already become highly influential in the London underground electronic scene. As they continue their rise, they're also becoming increasingly recognizable on the international stage. The band is comprised of the American-English producer Ike Clateman and Polish-English vocalist, frontwoman, and songwriter Maria Manow. I, personally, loved Basspunk 2, the EP that truly endeared me to the duo, but Forever, as the name suggests, pushes their unique musical aesthetic to the extreme and imbues it with an intoxicating replayability. Whispered, overlapping vocals layer with gritty beats and dreamy synths in a way that feels somehow both raw and seamless. It’s one of the only recent albums I’ve listened to front-to-back without meaning to.

The album is extremely eclectic. Tracks like "Grass is Greener" and "Wolves Howling" pair folk influences and natural imagery with infectious beats. The "Wolves Howling" music video features a child roaming around a cornfield, stylized as a hunter with arrows on his back, before he collapses in front of an ominous black truck. These visuals introduce many of the themes of Bassvictim's work: a seeking out of childhood feelings, an affinity for nature, and a strong suspicion towards the impact of the modern mechanical world on the former.

Other tracks, like "Lil Maria," function as a sort of techno lullaby. "27a Pitfield St" is a highly sentimental expression of longing for a former hangout spot and the friends that would gather there. In many ways, Bassvictim brings the old-school hippie lifestyle—and the chaos that accompanies it—into the digital age. Resistance to the changing world around them, a clash with social rules and the adult world, and a desire to escape in whatever ways are available coalesce to form my favorite track on the album. 

"Equilibrium time, work and play and I play now/Goes without saying all this noise feels like youth time/Drugs are on their way that's the way that the way now" (27a Pitfield St)

While the band has some reputation for being warring with each other behind the scenes, being kicked out of Berghain, and posting biting responses to critics on their Instagram, they do not appear to view this as a bad thing. In fact, their music wholly embraces the transformative power of occasionally (or, frequently) calling someone a bitch. Their artistry at times paints charming and nostalgic pictures, but isn't afraid of lyrics such as: 

"You're a little bitch/You're boring, you're worrying/You gotta go and find your white house/True dogs calling" (Dog Tag Freestyle)

Within this abrasiveness lies an interrogation of a system that often refuses to tolerate conflict in personal relationships and seeks a sort of bland relatability and marketability from musical artists. Yet their willingness to express anger doesn’t narrow the emotional or sonic range of the work; it expands it, creating stark contrasts with classical influences and, at times, genuine rapture. After each sonic and lyrical rupture, there are moments of remorse, fear of abandonment, and then, occasionally, a return to the initial anger. Sometimes the songs become circuitous and loop faster and faster. Sometimes the songs break down sonically and devolve into pure noise. In many ways, their music seems childish, certainly not due to the quality of production, but due to the heavy influence of memory and emotional transitions that don't feel a need to be linear or make sense of themselves lyrically or narratively. We are simply being brought along for the ride they are on. As stated in an interview with Pitchfork:

"That’s something we recognize in each other—we’re not really grown up,” says Clateman. “The goal is to get to the ‘child place’ when you’re making music."

The last song "Final Song" chronically repeats the refrain "Please don't, Please don't go away" plaintively before seeming airing a list of grievances and repeating a heavy vocal distortion of the word "bitch." The continual inter-splicing of different emotional registers and types of vocals creates Bassvictim's musical signature. On this track, Manow sounds far away, mutedly screaming in a manner that seems to understand it is fruitless to beg. Alternating between sometimes angry, sometimes playful yelling, vulnerable whisper-singing with raw vocals, and occasional vocal fry, the album's tone refuses simple emotional or generic descriptions. Their tracks resist simplistic labels such as "breakup songs," "sad songs," or "diss tracks" and instead choose to embody the full range of emotions things like loss, anger, or revelry can bring about.

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