AMN Reviews: The Nausea – Requiem (2024; Absurd Exposition / Buried In Slag And Debris)

Requiem begins with an ominously lilting melodic pattern featuring at least a cello and violin. Within two minutes it builds to a mass of roiling sound as additional layers of amplified strings and effects are brought in to form walled noise. Then it fades back to just a handful of strings. This approach immediately brings to mind the threnodies of Penderecki and Crumb, but with a heavier and more modern feel.

Despite its density, The Nausea is a one-woman project of Vancouver-based performer and composer Anju Singh. She contributes violin, viola, cello, electronics, vocals, and noise. Graham Christofferson helps out on percussion and synth. Following its overwhelming opening, most of Requiem‘s length features just a handful of overdubbed strings each one working through relatively straightforward lines. But the combination and layering of these patterns makes this album singular. Indeed, the sawings, gritty extended techniques, and martial percussion employed on De Morte Transire are exquisitely unusual even when devolving into cacophony.

Thematically, Singh explores concepts around death and in particular her difficulties processing the emotions it brings forth in her and others. This is a more personal focus than those of the aforementioned classical composers, as they stretched stringed instruments to extremes for purposes of depicting the horrors of war. But before anyone concludes that Singh’s music comes from just a place of experimental classicism, her amalgam of styles also has a strong underpinning in extreme metal, noise, and electroacoustic ambient. As the liner notes proclaim, “chamber doom” may be the most appropriate label.

Requiem will be released on June 7. If any of the above sounds remotely interesting, give it a listen. Singh has a “wow” factor that shines through the veils of complex darkness on this album.