Mirin Bide / Entzauberung – Split EP

Soon to be released on а 7″ vinyl (due early March 2021), what we have here is a special release by two bands coming from the opposite sides of the globe. What they share in common, however, is the original ethos of punk, DIY and the ever-loving screeching sound of emoviolence.

In about ten minutes in total, both bands explode with a pure, rampant energy. Like waves of energy crashing into each other fiercely, rumbling, shaking. The bitter sounds of here and now, of the modern days and times crawling as we go on with our various duties and tasks, our everyday routines.

But before we go into that, let’s check a bit of history.

First, we’ve got Mirin Bide from Antofagasta, Chile, an emoviolence outfit formed by Lucas (guitar, vocals and member of the screamo band Tara), Scarlett (bass, vocals) and Johao (drums).

At the beginning of 2020 they released their debut EP Aberración, comprised of five short songs full of intensity that goes like a torrential flow between strident dissonance and melodic melancholy.  It was later released on tape by Larry Records. On October 31st that same label, together with Illuminate My Heart, released a 5″ that collected a few songs by the band. Along the way, they also released a split with IGBBTGIMA from Scotland and a 4 way split with Revenate, Melabuh Kelabu (both from Indonesia) and Mis Sueños Son De Tu Adiós (Argentina). This one with Entzauberung  is their third split release.

Entzauberung is a manic sounding one-man screamo band from Paris, France, filled with a strong buzzing energy and a hectic pulse that’s submerged into dark but radiant distortion. They debuted in 2015 with a self-titled 5 song EP in which we can hear their characteristic drowned screamed vocals that give a warped feel to their signature fast-paced and short songs. Two years later they released The Love We Think We Deserve, their second EP, with longer songs that develop thunderous melodies and larger instrumental passages. In 2018 that was followed by Drops, a 10 tracker with a more explosive and livid enveloping soundscape. Finally, in 2020 we could hear three singles that worked as a prelude to what would come later. A little musical bridge of sorts, which connects us to the future sound of the project. This leads us to this new split release.

A slow, overdriven, oscillating bass opens the Mirin Bide side. The song is called “Civilizar” and it talks about illusions, will and chains, about the self, with lyrics throwing questions at us violently, with passionate screams hitting our ears and vividly resonating in our hearts. The band’s yelling at the top of their lungs, playing along with bashing instruments in a somber and dense ambience, which feels full of various sticky bodily fluids mixed together, fading into feedback, droning as our minds follow the noise. Then, we’re interrupted by the tormented voices of “Grises”, opening like a wound full of affliction, bleeding and dripping, drop by drop, falling into an endless well.

On the other side of the 7″, Entzauberung bring a different feeling, harsher and somewhat sinister, but also carrying a similar languid mood that persists throughout their music. The vocals and background static of lost signal waves are constantly fighting but as if they know there’s no chance to win. They feel defeated, but, despite coming on top, the instruments feel just as lost.  These songs are grim and ominous, like interference from a broken radio, the white noise of distress. Absorbed, we keep watching the ripples in the abyss of the same endless well from before, looking back at us with bleak and apathetic eyes. Everything’s blurred in distortion, molten, all its materials are collapsed, spilled and scattered. I didn’t know about this project beforehand and hearing exactly these three tracks was quite a nice surprise.

The first month of the year has gone by pretty quickly and everything is getting faster by the second, but we still find ways to hold on and to release little discharges of boiling emotions as we navigate this huge mess, as we can clearly hear condensed in this ringing entanglement of emotional reverberations.

The suffocation and the sense of the stillness on the reiteration of patterns repeated on and on again, in years of musical history, still reflect on our way of living today. These relations that first gave birth to the genres we enjoy so much. I think we must stay open to the places they could bring us. Even if it’s just by turning our record player on and placing a new 7″ on it as we lay in our bedrooms, all alone.