Ecce Shnak - Shadows Grow Fangs
NYC-based outfit Ecce Shnak presents their debut EP 'Shadows Grow Fangs' via Record Man, Records, showcasing incomparable ingenuity and limitless invention over five songs. The quintet also present their new video for the title track.
If there’s a fine line between wild-eyed, inspired genius and utter, irrepressible insanity, that’s where you’ll find Ecce Shnak, teetering on a neon tightrope. With David Roush as composer, bassist, and one of two singers, he is joined by Bella Komodromos (vocals), Chris Krasnow (guitar), Gannon Ferrell (guitar), and Henry Buchanan-Vaughn (drums).
This EP runs the gamut from slow-burning meditations on love’s indispensability to mockery of the web from the perspective of a time-traveling poet – “What the fuck is the internet?!” Of course, this might sound a little ‘zany’, but it’s really not. Not at all. It’s intricately constructed, methodically fashioned, and – while undeniably offbeat – as serious and logical as it’s entertaining.
Recorded and produced by Jeff Lucci at the Art Farm (NY), their debut EP was mixed by Nicholas Vernhes (Animal Collective, Deerhunter, The Fiery Furnaces, Dirty Projectors, Wild Nothing, The War on Drugs) and mastered by Grammy-winning engineer Greg Calbi (John Lennon, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, Talking Heads, Patti Smith, Tom Petty, Todd Rundgren).
Ecce Shnak subverts notions of style, playfully but reverently embracing multiple forms across the spectrum, while addressing weighty themes and notable trivia with striking articulacy. “Each genre has its own manner of expression, mannerisms, history, motivations, virtues, flaws, limitations, and so on," says David Roush. At my best as a composer and lyricist, I listen to and respect each one, then whatever I take from their souls informs mine, inhabiting it, expanding, and merging.”
Ecce Shnak recently shared the single 'The Internet', an eclectic gem that makes a fine mockery of the web from the perspective of a time-travelling poet, following the downtempo groove-inducing opus 'Prayer on Love' and the lead track 'Jeremy, Utilitarian Sadboy' a 150-second track about 19th Century English philosopher Jeremy Bentham that combines math-metal, post-rock and choral anthems.
“Though we’re just releasing it now, the song 'Shadows Grow Fangs' is around 15 years old. I started writing it before I had even committed to a life as a musician, when I was a mere 25-year-old living and working in South Philadelphia, thinking I would become a psychotherapist some day. 'Shadows Grow Fangs' is about the tragic misunderstandings of ourselves, other people, and everybody’s wants and needs in those horrifying moments in which we feel abandoned and threatened. Tragically, sometimes people alienate ourselves from one another precisely when we need each other most. Worse still, sometimes we alienate ourselves from each other precisely when we could be of greatest help to one another," says David Roush.
"The terrifying “shadows” of abandonment and the perils of conscious life “grow fangs” of merciless resentment, revenge, nihilism, and gross misanthropy. When we chomp each other in this state, we chomp ourselves, too. Maybe that was our point all along, but how could we know either way? We are terrified and confused. To be sure, a state of terror and confusion is rarely a state that gives rise to our best selves, but it is a state we often find ourselves in! It’s a hard to state avoid, as a human being anyway. How do we avoid this jackassery? This is not a bitter rhetorical question. It is a genuine moral challenge, and one of the basic moral challenges of a human life."
As of February 7, 'Shadows Grow Fangs' is available from fine music platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music. Ecce Shnak's EP release show will take place on February 26 at the Red Pavilion in New York.
