Dying 4: Blue Bendy guitarist built his own world out of Scunthorpe
If you know the multi-genre art-rockers Blue Bendy, you know that Joseph Nash is the guitarist of that sextet. Dying 4, however, is something substantially broader and wilder. The project is built almost entirely from electric guitar, programmed drums and warped vocals, and in it Nash takes the sounds he grew up on in Scunthorpe, England — indie, British bass music, fringe-sporting emo and the various youth subcultures that orbited them — and fuses them into a shimmering blend that is at once fresh and nostalgically familiar. DIY Magazine ↗
It's precisely that fusion that makes Dying 4 such an interesting listen. Nash has reduced the endless possibilities of modern production down to the one instrument he knows best, twisting the guitar for as long as it takes until it turns into something otherworldly and half-asleep. From the melodic lines through the basslines to the sequences and glitches, everything is just electric guitar, bent out of shape in Ableton. DIY Magazine ↗
He himself compares it to a shop with a million flavours: "Maybe Shakeaway, you know, that milkshake shop where there's a million options? All those flavours are there and you can mix them into something strange. As an analogy for mixing seemingly disparate genres. Along with that slightly unsettling, vaguely familiar look." DIY Magazine ↗
He doesn't consider Scunthorpe a handicap, though. "It actually wasn't terrible. There's no big city nearby, so I think that breeds a bit of a maladjusted musical microcosm, where youth culture doesn't get pulled into the orbit of, say, London or Manchester," he says. He also recalls The Base, a club that he says was the nerve centre for emo moshers and supported bands even when they didn't yet properly know how to play. DIY Magazine ↗
The debut EP Perish Songs was released on September 4 on the Practise Music label. DIY Magazine ↗
It's precisely that fusion that makes Dying 4 such an interesting listen. Nash has reduced the endless possibilities of modern production down to the one instrument he knows best, twisting the guitar for as long as it takes until it turns into something otherworldly and half-asleep. From the melodic lines through the basslines to the sequences and glitches, everything is just electric guitar, bent out of shape in Ableton. DIY Magazine ↗
He himself compares it to a shop with a million flavours: "Maybe Shakeaway, you know, that milkshake shop where there's a million options? All those flavours are there and you can mix them into something strange. As an analogy for mixing seemingly disparate genres. Along with that slightly unsettling, vaguely familiar look." DIY Magazine ↗
He doesn't consider Scunthorpe a handicap, though. "It actually wasn't terrible. There's no big city nearby, so I think that breeds a bit of a maladjusted musical microcosm, where youth culture doesn't get pulled into the orbit of, say, London or Manchester," he says. He also recalls The Base, a club that he says was the nerve centre for emo moshers and supported bands even when they didn't yet properly know how to play. DIY Magazine ↗
The debut EP Perish Songs was released on September 4 on the Practise Music label. DIY Magazine ↗
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