BLACK CASSETTE…CVLT Nation interviews WRECK & REFERENCE

This is rad…CVLT Nation had the chance to interview a Sacramento band that we know is 200% awesome…they are called Wreck & Reference. This group creates electronic doom that they transmit to Earth from their own universe. Wreck & Reference put a super epic tape out named Black Cassette & it’s straight bonkers killer music. After the jump, step into Wreck & Reference’s mind’s eye, plus download a special mixtape that the band curated for CVLT Nation. So enjoy it all & have a killer read…

Wreck & Reference: In Chains, Awakening


Wreck & Reference: All the Ships Have Been Abandoned

Hey hey Wreck & Reference, how are things in your world?

Though often angst-ridden and soaked through with alcohol, W&R nation is on the ascent. We are mounting an attack, stockpiling ammunition, and committing a more refined manifesto to memory. Our sabers are rattling.

How does your band create the sense of slowness that exists in songs like “Surrendering”?

To play this song with any sense of speed would be to rip the bandages off faster and we prefer prolonged encounters with pain. The key is to hold on until it feels like it will all fall apart and then keep holding.

What was the creative starting point for the creation of the Black Cassette?

The Black Cassette emerged from the ashes of a previous incarnation of W&R with sunnier dispositions, the remnants of which may still be found on the undying database of the internet. The aging of bodies, the conquering of distance, and a simmering discontent allowed two minds to converge. In this vat of a house, from the desire to create something malignant and expressive, a carnal self was able to ferment.

When listening to your music, I hear a doom influence – almost like deconstructed doom – but on your own terms. Can you explain what I am hearing?

We do consider ourselves a doom band, but resist residing in that genre alone. We have been guided, as should be clear, by those who seek to rupture category boundaries. An excellent example of such transcendence was The Body’s 2010 release, All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood. Their incorporation of rhythmic samples, choirs, and noise is an obvious inspiration to us. The doom that you hear on the Black Cassette is born from a similar striving towards transcendence, incorporating black metal, noise, electronics, drones, atmospherics and all other relevant terminology.

With songs like “In Chains, Awakening,” to me there is an early 80’s goth vibe that I really dig. Would you cite this era of music as an influence?

That would be certainly difficult to deny. There are countless such eras that have blessed our ears but we obviously owe a lot to the dark masters of the early 80’s.

What is the greatest joy that creating music brings you?

The social experiment of playing live at unreasonable volumes to an unwitting audience. The struggled throbbing of amplifiers and the cathartic, violent blows to drums temporarily silence rationality and free anguish. As we expose the spectators to the assault of our music, we expose ourselves to them in an honest exchange.

Your music has a sad quality to is, but it is still very uplifting, would you agree?

All of our songs are born in a pit of despair, but we’d rather drag them up to pandemonium than let them fester in the place from whence they came. In the equation of catharsis, kinetic energy is just as important as angst.

What would be the ideal setting for a Wreck & Reference performance?

If your music was architecture, what would it be and why?

Monolithic slabs of ash on the verge of collapse and subsuming the surroundings. But since that is a ridiculous answer, we can say our house in Davis, whose foundation is collapsing and whose reverberant spaces are committed to the character of our cassette.

Tell us how important rhythm is for the way you make music?

Rhythm is one of the many vital organs and one of the best ways to mark the passing of time. How one divides the units of time tells more about most men than traditional metrics.

What is the biggest influence on your lyrics?

Science and philosophy. The lyrics often refer to the darker facets of existentialism, 20th century French philosophers, the absence of a supernatural caretaker, and death. There is a prevailing theme of determinism and several references to Schopenhauer’s Will, the ontological imperative to postpone entropy. Spinoza is mentioned in jest in “A Lament”, rejecting the definitional notion of god in favor of scientific reductionism. The song “Evening Redness” pays homage to Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian to express dissatisfaction with the isolation of Western culture. The deathly prose of Blood Meridian influenced both the lyrical content and the musical, pursuing relentless intensity and vivid excursions into primal forces within man.

Any messages for the CVLT Nation readers?

Wreck and Reference is an asteroid streaking through frozen space towards the Earth. As we thunder through the stratosphere, the world will remember its primal drives and look nauseous at their lives dilute with distractions. We care not for the crater we cause, but for the surging of blood and endorphins as we hover in dilated time-space moments before impact, a reminder of our rawest humanity. In your final days, stay with the CVLT. They are one of the good few.

WRECK REFERENCE X CVLT Nation MIXTAPE CLICK DOWNLOAD!!!



WRECK REFERENCE X CVLT Nation MIXTAPE TRACK LIST


1. Asunder: Twilight Amaranthine
2. 中学生棺桶: 有言実行後に一人
3. Gowns: White like Heaven
4. Have A Nice Life: Bloodhail
5. Xiu Xiu: Hives Hives
6. Ben Frost: Killshot
7. Mount Eerie: Appetite
8. Blackout Beach: Astoria, Menthol Lite, Hilltop, Wave of Evil, 1982
9. Om: On The Mountain At Dawn
10. Conan: Krull
11. Death Grips: Full Moon (Death Classic)
12. Wolves In The Throne Room: Vastness and Sorrow