I used to listen to a lot more music like this. Back when I was nieve and unstrained. Back when I didn't really know what music was or how important it would become to me. I would listen to a lot of underground punk that barely adhered to any know structures or theories of music. Rebellious acts of sound that appeared formless but conveyed a sense of importance and internal consistency. I still listen to untamed music. But I used to listen a LOT more. Texan slow-emo band Lithium Bath reminds me of the kind of band who I would see open a show at a roller rink and then take a chance on one of the hand labeled CD-Rs they were selling at their merch table. A lot of bands I discovered that way stuck with me for years. I also had a habit of searching Myspace for the names I saw on flyers posted at my local record. I discovered a lot of unique voices that way too. And Lithium Bath reminds me of all of them as well. As for how I actually came across Lithium Bath... who can say. I'm always swimming in music. It was either Twitter or I found them through a fan's profile on Bandcamp. Something like that. However it occurred, I'm glad I encountered this them. Their 2021 album Everything Before You Left is expectedly lofi but not in a lazy or predictable way. Sure, it sounds like the album was recorded on a Tascam that had been partially mauled by a garbage disposal. And yes, that is probably because the band couldn't afford anything better. But the distortions in sound, its warped and disappearing edges, form such a vital component of the character of Everything Before You Left. It makes me feel like I'm listening to something private- recordings that were never meant to be shared. A secret and imaginative conspiracy. And by eavesdropping and listening to the record, I've now become a co-conspirator with the band. It doesn't help me much when it comes to defining the records sound beyond these textures though. Being in the "know" just means you realize that there is a lot that you're not getting. Everything Before You Left is a whole bunch of split ends and ingrown hairs. Meandering points of reference with unclear origins and blurry points of termination. That said, it's decidedly emo. It's certainly shoegaze inspired. And it's proto-everthing. It's like Low in a pre-oedipal state. It's very Joan of Arc in a hurry and with something to say. Often throwing so many ideas at the listener that it is hard to tell when the band has fully unspoiled one and picked up the thread of another entirely. Or rather, it's like Bluetile Lounge contemplating the tide as it swallows and reguritates a plastic bag floating in the surf- always pushing down but eternally anticipating the return of emotions one can't quite account for or explain. This is especially the case when the murmurous fretting gives way to voluminous bursts of nerve-wracking energy. There isn't anything that constrains or limits Lithium Bath in the pursuit of understanding who they are now, or laying the brick for the path to who they will be later. All the wreckage in between will one day form a flowerbed, upon which will sprout throwns of memory will thrive in search of a hand to prick. Drawing blood as a reminder of what can't be suppressed, and what still lies deathless and buried underneath.
