‘The Meeting’ by RN White | New Album, ‘Cerebral Split’
Exclusive track premiere of ‘The Meeting’ by harsh noise RN White, taken from her latest album, ‘Cerebral Split’. Out today, via Obscure & Terrible.
RN White is the harsh noise scraped from the mind of Seattle’s Rachel N LeBlanc. This is a welcome change of pace for her, as LeBlanc served as a longtime booking agent and organizer in the Seattle noise and experimental community, chiefly for Debacle Records and Hollow Earth Radio.
Though RN White is her first outing alone conjuring brutal chasms of sound, she was previously half of guitar-torturing duo #tits and the snotty-voiced guitarist of improv noise ensemble WaMu. There’s also her solo hymnal-drone project Blessed Blood. But here, LeBlanc connects to her own personal darkness, drawing out the blackened soundtrack from within.
This debut, ‘Cerebral Split’, is RN White reckoning with her mental health issues. Crafted during the dark, pandemic winter of 2021 — coincidentally her first as a funeral director — the three-track release is a dialogue between the emotional brain and the rational mind. Sonically, what’s processed through a minimal effects collection of distortion, pitch shifting, and looping, are simply vocals.
The result is punishing, tenacious, fiery, primordial noise walls. But listen closer, and you’ll find hints of RN White’s breadth of influence: beat-like cycles; both snarling punk and hymnal singing; churning industrial; even a nod to turntablism scratching. Overall, it’s a classic foray in noise fundamentals, but these added elements push Cerebral Split forward in the genre.
RN White Facebook / Instagram
Obscure & Terrible Instagram / Bandcamp
