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Music

Arabrot Show A Lot Of Skin with “The Grip of The Family, A Cinch”

Check out the new video from the forthcoming 'I Modi' for the first time here

In just over a decade, Norway’s Arabrot has transformed from an agile noise rock band with a twisted sense of humor and literary intellect into an infinitely-headed Hydra that explodes those elements into seemingly endless territories. Think of the sonic thickness and pulsating rhythm of Swans and the swagger of the Birthday Party mixed with the Melvins channeling Don Juan and you’re still only part way there. Early on, Arabrot’s chaotic nature and outsider bent left them overlooked in their metal-loving homeland but their natural and continual progressions have since won over audiences in Europe and beyond. The brainchild of Kjetil Nernes, who is accompanied by a rotating crew of friends, Arabrot has recorded with the likes of Billy Anderson (Sleep, Neurosis), Emil Nikolaisen (Serena Maneesh / frequent Arabrot contributor), and Steve Albini (half of your record collection), who engineered its 2011 Spelleman Award (Norway’s equivalent of the Grammy) -winning fifth album, Solar Anus.

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Earlier this year, Arabrot began work on a mini-album titled I Modi, which was conceived as a complement to its 2013 EP, Murder as Art. “They both deal with human emotions. Murder As Art is thematically desperate and deals with madness the way only the Bible does. I Modi--referring to the classical Renaissance erotica--is carnal. [It’s] surrealistically sexual and sometimes just pure smut,” says Nernes. Recording took place in a rural Swedish church that also serves as Arabrot’s HQ, with members of Okkultokrati (who recorded Night Jerks there around the same time) making guest contributions. Things were looking good and sounding even better, until all of a sudden they weren’t.

While mastering the final tracks for I Modi, Nernes received a devastating diagnosis of throat cancer. “It's interesting, retrospectively, to see how much the mental status affects the moods of the records I make. [With] I Modi in particular, the lyrics and the concept are purely sexual, but they are overshadowed by a feeling of some darkness brewing. Unconsciously, I knew something was wrong,” he says. Even as a listener, the record’s overwhelming, visceral moods and vivid, physical imagery-laden lyrics leave an undeniable sense that its creator was on the cusp of turbulence and danger.

Despite his illness, Arabrot carried on with the record and a spring UK tour (unsurprising, perhaps, considering Nernes had previously toured with a collapsed lung). In May he was hospitalized and underwent an intensive surgery that left 35 stitches across his neck. True to form, he’s already back to work; Along with the upcoming record release, Arabrot also has plans for European tour with Portland noisemongers, Rabbits before heading back to the studio this winter.

The textures and themes of I Modi come to life in a video for its opening track, “The Grip of The Family, A Cinch.” Nernes describes the concept as, “a trip on the human body; a strange eerie landscape.” Watch and you’ll likely agree. Directed by Olle Lundin, the video echos the song’s physical fixations, slithering, darkened sensuality, and confrontationally tight, urgent moods through a series of extreme close-ups of a human subject presented in sort of a hyperrealistic noir. The camera courses over contours and crevices and through beads of sweat, hair follicles, moles, and the rhythms of breathing. While almost nothing is left to imagination, everything remains shrouded in mystery. [For those of you with conservative-leaning employers, I would think this is SFW-ish]

Check out the “The Grip of The Family, A Cinch” above and get ready for the release of I Modi on October 13 through Fysisk Format.