SOHNI CHAMBERS - Yaw Mah Ha

Cameron Stallones and Nick Malkin seem two sides of the same moebius strip. As Sun Araw, they take pride in an almost ascetic game of self-restraint; honing rhythms, programming synthesizers, and modulating a long chain of effects until they hit a perfect, balanced and restrained groove.Sohni Chambers, a side project in the truest sense of the word, finds an official release for pent up musical energies. As the title suggests, Stallones and Malkin are still traversing the same semiotic badlands, where pop culture signifiers are recontextualized with a dopey fineness and humor. But here Stallones and Malkin have a rougher and more honest program and the outcome drips with an unprecedented consecration. The rhythms hit harder, organ exercises swirl endlessly in a Dionysian blaze of primordial oneness.Ya they might induce the sort of meditation weve come to expect from Stallones and his cohorts, but the genuine focus of these works lies in a sort of fetishized materiality: its just a Galaxie 8180 electronic organ and a five-piece drumset-¢‚Ǩ‚Äùodd timbres, distortions, broken keys, buzzing echoes and all. A dialogue vocal howls that flits in and out concretizes the intimacy of this musical space; while Stallones and Malkin are indeed wizards of levitated, shamanistic, and disembodied musical realities, here we see them straight on; two bros just letting shit out, warts and all. -Goaty