#Rainy Miller x Space Afrika - Maybe It's Time to Lay Down the Arms

[thousandisthemaximum]

Puntine #120 - Canzoni da ricordare questa settimana

https://www.dlso.it/site/2023/09/27/puntine-120-canzoni-da-ricordare/

[musicdiaries]

Rainy Miller x Space Afrika - A Grisaille Wedding (2023)

[dustedmagazine]

Rainy Miller x Space Afrika — A Grissaille Wedding (Fixed Abode)

Photo by Timon Benson

As performers, writers and producers Rainy Miller and Space Afrika (Joshua Inyang and Joshua Reid) are key figures in an eclectic Manchester centered electronic, avant-pop scene that includes artists Blackhaine, Iceboy Violet and Richie Culver. Grissaille is a style of painting done exclusively in shades of grey. It can serve as a base upon which color is overpainted and/or as method of imitating (sculptural) relief. Both aspects are present on this collaboration, A Grissaille Wedding where the songs whisper from doorways, alleys, industrial wastelands. Foggy, weakly lit by the reflection of rain splattered streetlamps on oil slicked asphalt. A new version of Northern soul built from grime, dubstep, machines both shiny and decrepit. With Miller’s vocal often autotuned these songs flicker between despair and hope, soliloquys of love, loss and trauma blooming into a cruel world framed by Space Afrika’s impressionist soundscapes, which highlight the vulnerability and quiet defiance of the narrators.

“Summon the Spirit/Demon” opens as an invocation. Miller’s whispers and coos shrouded in a murky Burial like atmosphere as Voice Actor intones invitingly. Miller’s multitracked singing follows, pitched high to emphasize his fragility. “Maybe It’s Time to Lay Down the Arms” features Mica Levi and Miller over a stumbling trip hop beat and lysergic swirls of synth and backing vocals. A lonely plea for inner peace. On “Sweet (I’m Free)” RenzNiro and Iceboy Violet reflect on finding self-acceptance and love amongst damaged lives in ruined towns as Space Afrika’s soundscape slips and churns beneath them. Celestial backing vocals, billowing synth pads, violins and a simple cyclical acoustic guitar riff give the “The Graves at Charleroi” a hymnal intensity as Coby Sey sings of the passage through grief. Richie Culver delivers the spoken word piece “I Believe in God, When Things are Going My Way” against a background of quavering strings and beatless ambience. He plays with the ambiguity of his interlocutor, is it God? A lover? Himself?

“I need rules, false promises/The laws keep me safe/Safe by your side/4th of December, a victim of my own thoughts” feels like a summary of the project’s main theme. Paradox, complexity, hope and despair are ever present. The greyness throws trauma into stark silhouette but splashes of color, hard won knowledge and the will to express the fragility of self can lead to some form of acceptance and allow one to move forward. A Grissaille Wedding forges all this into a hauntingly beautiful set of songs which aren’t afraid to bare teeth as well as wounds.

Andrew Forell