Look To The North is the collaboration between United Bible Studies’ David Colohan and Nonconnah’s Zachary Corsa.
Colohan and Corsa are an odd brew and not a collaboration that forms at the front of your mind. Not least because both artists are separated by the Atlantic, but sonically too, as both operate in slightly different enclaves within the experimental landscape.
One thing the pair do have in common is that they have released some excellent music in 2023. Firstly Colohan, whose Sargasso Sky LP is among the finest under his belt. A series of emotionally fraught compositions designed for churches, severely stirring up the embers.
Meanwhile, Corsa’s Nonconnah have been taking noise to very interesting places, with field recordings, guitars pile-ons and sci-fi-inspired bunker sonics finding a wonderful middle ground between the soft and the abrasive.
Whether or not it’s a coincidence that Look To The North’s third release, A Shadow Homeland, shares the same release date as Nonconnah’s latest dispatch, Shadows from the Walls of Death (also out via Cruel Nature), the Newcastle label plays matchmaker here, having also provided a worthy home to much of Colohan’s recent body of work (label founder Steve Strode is also responsible for Shadow of Homeland’s cover art).
A Shadow Homeland sees Colohan and Corsa expose the kind of folk drone that feeds into the morbid darkness this time of year brings. A companion for early mornings, this is not.
First of four compositions, Disintegrating Consoles and Cartridges begins as Corsa reveals a spoken-word passage where spirit and human momentarily become one (“Remember me as one and remember a certain darkness)”. It’s the kind of hope drone that God Speed You! Black Emperor have captured since their resumption over a decade ago. Flickering lights of noise finds its way through the mist and as field recordings are mashed into the mix, it makes for an interesting contrast – Corsa’s American homeland blending with Colohan’s Irish locality of open space, greenery and winter dampness.
The piano-led Lost Futures Inhabiting the Present drifts into The Water That Shattered Their Image, blending Nonconnah’s most tender moments with Colohan’s haunting synths. It makes for a gripping encounter. So too the voiceover, courtesy of a person claiming to hear Jesus demanding his congregation howl like wolves (of course, they comply). It’s these in-jokes that Corsa has dotted all throughout their music over the years (most recently via the collaboration with droneroom’s Blake Conley as Jesus’ Twin Brother; the song titles filled with references from The Leftovers).
On the final piece, An Amulet for the Flux of Blood, Colohan takes charge with a long-form slow-motion hymn that wouldn’t look out of place on a United Bible Studies release. With Corsa adding the relevant sonic embellishments underneath the mix, it ends A Shadow Homeland with a gentleness that conjuring up dusk-like imagery and open spaces to revel in solitude.
Perhaps an odd fit on paper, A Shadow Homeland suggest anything but, so much so that the next instalment shouldn’t be a maybe, but, indeed, a must.
A Shadow Homeland is out via Cruel Nature Records. Purchase from Bandcamp.
4 replies on “Look To The North: A Shadow Homeland”
[…] Cruel Nature banner, with Zachary’s collaboration with David Colohan as Look To The North (review here) also dropping last week. Here we see Nonconnah give it to us straight, with multi-layered guitars […]
[…] Corsa sees Conley nodding in the direction of his long-time collaborator and kindred spirit, Nonconnah’s Zachary Corsa. Like And All Ships at Sea, both tracks are littered with wonky sonics, field […]
[…] Look To The North: A Shadow Homeland […]
[…] It’s not before Desmond and Corsa stamp their mark, and perhaps like never before. The pair, starting with glistening synth and guitar interplay, before heaving tonality and crushing bass weight hits like an avalanche. Malice from the ground level rather than the kind of summon from the void that Sunn O))) have built a career on. However, despite their search and destroy mission, with such a forlorn ending, oddly enough, it calls upon the same earthy emotional pull as Corsa’s work alongside David Colohan as Look To The North for their 2023 release, A Shadow Homeland. […]