Mark Trecka, an accomplished musician unafraid to push the sonic envelope, just announced his new LP ― The Bloom of Performance ― along with its first single “Utter Fallen Bloom Things.” A moody post-industrial soundscape that sets the tone for the upcoming project.
His latest full-length, The Bloom of Performance plays with the emotional resonance of sound art textures and looping, hypnotic elements ― something Trecka has garnered acclaim for in recent years. But here, it’s all filtered through the powerful, perhaps nostalgic sonority of art pop, post-punk, and dream pop.
Trecka’s previous two full-lengths were made with only voice, piano, and tape loops. Acknowledgment and Implication were praised by Marc Masters, who selected the latter as among Bandcamp’s Best Experimental Music, calling these recordings “intriguing” for their “memory-drenched aura.” Years ealier, Pop Matters acknowledged Trecka’s work with his band Pillars and Tongues, drawing comparisons to world-goth luminaries Dead Can Dance for the “wide-open sonic palettes, which unfurl their complexities and intricacies […] over time.”
The Bloom of Performance can perhaps be considered a bridge between these two modes. From the chiming prepared piano, electric bass, and industrial rhythms of opener “Utter Fallen Bloom Things” to the raw space of “Houndedness” and “Epiphanic Crush,” fans of HTRK, Dirty Beaches, and Bowie’s “Berlin Trilogy” will find much to love in the dark and hypnogogic world of this infectious music. The Bloom of Performance was recorded over the course of a year with Sam Skarstad (Yellow Eyes) and features contributions from Martin Courtney (Real Estate) and Evan Hydzik (Pillars and Tongues).
“There’s no grand, personal narrative about this record that I want to share with the public,” Trecka says. “But I will say this: I very much wanted to make a record that I would want to listen to; that ― if I encountered it ― I would be compelled to share, to put the songs on mixtapes for my closest friends. I wanted to make the kind of record that might alchemize pain and anxiety and madness for those friends.”
So The Bloom of Performance is one of Trecka’s most generous projects to date, bolstered by Skarstad’s deft engineering and co-production. Trecka’s voice is dynamic on these recordings: one moment of ascending lilt is reminiscent of Bowie at his most untamed, while moments of falsetto are as haunted as the fog-threaded mountains that Skarstad’s Hudson Valley studio overlooks. It’s clear that Trecka and Circuit Des Yeux’s Haley Fohr are cut from similar cloths. Strange but beautiful experiments color this dreamy record: cut-up tape of Trecka’s croon and wail interwoven throughout are startlingly buoyant, dancing with careening drum machine rhythms at times Adrian Sherwood-esque.
But The Bloom of Performance reaches out more than it demands, making use of some of the most pleasurable aspects of music to, hopefully, give shape to wild feelings and to tenderly accompany those who listen. It’s set to come out February 23, 2024.
What do you think of the album’s lead single “Utter Fallen Bloom Things”?
