death's dynamic shroud have always been curious about what we can’t see. Tech Honors, James Webster, and Keith Rankin make music that explores that sense of wonderment—emotional, experimental electronic work that fills gaps between the known and unknown. Full of richly textured layers of sound, songs like new single “Judgment Bolt” draw unsuspecting listeners into a place that’s simultaneously murky and neon, somber and playful. You feel a sense of new adventure, with a curious pang of déjà vu. The group was initially drawn to the vaporwave world, producing records like 2015’s I’ll Try Living Like This and 2017’s Heavy Black Heart, which took familiar sounds—like K-pop, among others—to their maximalist limits. Since then they’ve experimented with making music in different formations of the group and collected the results in a project called NUWRLD Mixtape Club, which included the acclaimed 2021 release Faith In Persona. Their upcoming album—their first in years to include all three members—finds them further exploring unknown realms, focusing on original composition, songwriting, and vocals. And, of course, they’ve utilized some well-placed samples to help drive the album’s concept: an exploration of “love as a social construct, or as the fabric of the universe, or as not existing.” Once again, death’s dynamic shroud work to chart what we can’t see but—more than ever—can feel. To Webster, this era boils down to one salient fact: “There’s more of us in this than ever before.
