In what is one of the most significant events yet for uniquely challenging music out of North Texas, Pinkish Black has just had their track, “Bodies in Tow,” featured on Pitchfork today. Writer Brandon Stosuy described the band as:
A Forth Worth, TX duo mixing deathrock, drone, dark punk, Birthday Party exorcisms, and a fondness for Suicide…
He then mentions Om. I chatted briefly with the co-founder of the group’s label, Handmade Birds, R. Loren. He agrees with the comparison, stating, “How amazing it opens up at the end, after the Om-esque first half.”
However, he didn’t want to “over-paint” the two distinctly different groups, and said that the “Om thing really is only relevant for a small portion of the album, mostly the first song. After that it unravels: Birthday Party, Flipper, early Residents, Bauhaus, Swans.” That’s a very promising early album review by the label head, and it doesn’t get much better than that in the world of intense and difficult music.
Pitchfork also mentions that “Bodies in Tow” is a selection from the group’s eponymous debut record, which will be released in May via the Handmade Birds imprint. The dark and dense full-length was recorded by Denton’s Matt Barnhart, who tells me that Pinkish Black is his “favorite band I’ve ever recorded.” Sorry, other bands. Hopefully this is just the beginning of better things for band, label, and recording engineer alike; all three have been artistically powerful yet somewhat unappreciated forces in local music for some time now.
