With hypnotic colors pulsating to palpitating synth, Optic Sink leads you along a cerebral speed chase with their video for “Personified,” from their 2020 self-titled LP on Goner Records. Memphis-based artist Natalie Hoffmann collaborated with percussionist Ben Bauermeister to record the debut album, building a series of sound collages that morph between noise-rock, psych and cold-wave, then reassembling into another genre-defying soundscape. For “Personified,” Hoffman experimented with various contrasting textures to sonically illustrate the tension between human and machine – and perhaps the existential crises arising from this coexistence.
The album itself “is about the evasive search for comfort: The human need to have freedom from pain, and for ease in a fixed system made to exploit,” Hoffman says. “I lost two people who were inexpressibly important to me in 2018 and 2019, and it completely derailed me from working on music at all for a while. After I was able to focus on music again, the solitary and meditative endeavor of writing songs for Optic Sink became a form of therapy for me, and a way of working through the grief and shock of these losses. So, as much as this record is informed by the repercussions of our current political climate, it’s also shaped by a looming sense of loss.”
Optic Sink’s tour includes a show tonight, Saturday Oct. 1, at Chess Club, 617 Red River. They share the bill with El Paso artist Ziemba, and Austin-based songwriter Holy Wire. Doors at 9 p.m.
