2017-438-E Arts - Jenks Miller - 2017-18 Arts Grant Agreement

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DocuSign Envelope ID:AA4o52F4-E4o6-4Fo4-9e10-E18606475c71 Dusted Magazine Review, Horseback's Piedmont Apocrypha In a recent interview with Tiny Mix Tapes, Horseback mastermind Jenks Miller let slip a most telling tidbit about his long-running,genre-bending outfit "To be honest," Miller said, "I don't think there was ever really a line between metal and American roots nnusicformetoerame." It seems almost anathema to Miller's modus operandi for Horseback. Indeed,the name itself seems to betray an intention to blur the line between esoteric styles, implying both the thundering wizards and warriors of the former and the pastoral ease of the latter.And remember: Horseback's last full-length was called Half Blood, and that record confidently shifted from Americana twang to fiercely buzzing guitars to hypnotically meditative drone But Miller supports his claim at the outset of"Passing Through," its opening line offering an explication of Piedmont Apocrypha's somewhat jarring stylistic shift "I was born to lose/I won't have this form forever'" Perhaps most notably, Miller delivers this line not in a windswept growl but in an adenoidal sing-speak, enunciating clearly over acoustic guitars, eerie organ drones and brushed drums. It's devoid of the barrage of black-metal distortion of Half Blood (not to mention even earlier Horseback recordings), but it's of the same essence Piedmont Apocrypha still wraps its weight around the spooky mysticism that has characterized and cauterized Horseback,though here it's connected to the old mysteries of the forest and more redolent of the rolling hills and dark forests of ancient oak and pine that surround his North Carolina home Forests cast shadows, Miller writes in the liner notes, and he sees these shadows as portals to variable arcana. So while the languid and droning title track,which flows gracefully and seamlessly from "Passing Through," paints a landscape with a broad brush, it isn't exactly a pastoral setting.Tonally,the song is built on a two-note lick, subtle variations and vamps upon which give it a sense of depth and hint a sinister undercurrent.The song's complementary instruments paint in the margins with touches of intricate detail but lend Miller's eerie guitar lick—which seems neither major nor minor— an added sense of creeping malignance. Cymbals and tambourines chatter like the hisses of insects. Latticed guitars intertwine and overlap like distant birdcalls.The dissonant melodica and organ stabs evoke the hidden eyes of predators. When the title track's climactic clamor fades into the sampled cricket chirp of"Milk and Honey,"things get even darker, Miller whispers his words almost incomprehensibly over and deep, dripping sine-wave tremolo.The quiet is disquieting — more so, even,than Horseback's most scorched moments. Horseback returns to relatively normal form on protracted album closer"Chanting Out the Long Shadow": a slow-burning drone-metal riff churns over a steady rhythmic plod; it's also the return of Cookie Monster Jenks, Miller intonating his lyrics with an acid-gargling rasp. But it quickly mutates, dimming a third of the way through into a kudzu-paced blues vamp, Miller returning to his nasal chanting.The three-tone riff and the organ riff laid over it recall Invisible Mountain's"Invokation," but filtered through the wide-open and wide-ranging lens of Spirit Signal, Miller's texturally variegated (and wholly underrated)solo effort