Sunk Heaven The Fvckhearted Lvng

On THE FVCKHEA'TED LVNG, New York visual artist and musician Austin Sley-Julian of Sunk Heaven might convince you the lungfish is the spirit animal of 2021. He explains the creature's significance - 'Lungfish survive severe drought by laying dormant in dry mud within a membrane until the rain - the emergence of the dormant lungfish from under the drought-ridden mud represents the garish reality of our times.' THE FVCKHEA'TED LVNG is noisy but lucid, fittingly never falling into tropes of academic experimentalism or no-wave. Sley-Julian draws the throughline from dormancy to inequality and societal brutality. The surreal, dub-drenched 'A Nameless Influence' nods more directly to the lineage of violence, of the capacity for sleeping minds to become co-opted by someone else's political agenda. 'Have you ever seen such a tragic red,' he asks at the song's beginning, 'as time stains on the same mistakes?' Harsh noise pans in and out, re-enforcing the song's central image. 1) Fortitude 2) Fall W-O Impact 3) Cancer Of The Room (ft. Rachael Uhlir) 4) A Nameless Influence 5) Breathtaking 6) Coiling Devices 7) Phoenix (ft. Rachael Uhlir) 8) Moonfires 9) Motiv Turmoil 10) Shine