As a guitarist and founding member of stormy rockers O’Brother, Johnny Dang has spent well over a decade giving voice to the darkness. Generally speaking, that language has emerged in the form of thunderous riffs or atmospheric plumes of textural ambiance. On 2020’s You and I, however, Dang’s vocabulary expanded to include elements of drone and industrial noise, which helped push the group’s already ambitious compositions into headier, more abstract territory. Darkness, after all (not to mention its corresponding light), exists in infinite shapes and hues. Why limit yourself to any one particular vision?
While it would likely be a mistake to view Dang’s recent solo work under Hisself as an extension of O’Brother’s expansive canon, there’s no denying they both exist within a similar inky universe. Exchanging the streamlined surge of crushing guitars for melancholy piano, droning synths, staticky tape loops, and manipulated field recordings, Dang searches for beauty and meaning within the fragmented chaos of borderless soundscapes.
His latest offering, the grim and starkly beautiful “Moonsong / Nothingness,” was written during the peak of the pandemic doldrums. Like many of us, Dang had retreated inward, closing off his social life as the world descended into turmoil and disorder. Sinking into existential despair, he turned to composition in hopes of discovering release and some measure of understanding. “Some of the dark undertones reflect what I was feeling at the time and still feel,” Dang says. “My internal conflict with what is happening around the world, desolation, and the need to keep going through the motions every day all contributed to the theme of this song.”
Musically, he looked to composer Jóhann Jóhannsson for inspiration, stacking piano tape loops in order to heighten the track’s brooding tension. Meanwhile, a newly purchased cello provided unintended revelations when Dang accidentally slammed it into his piano bench while recording. The resulting crash created an explosive sound which he processed and eventually molded into the song’s stirring climax. For Dang, that seemingly innocuous moment ended up driving much of the track’s development. “Mapping out a song based around an organic sound rather than the song’s structure was a strange approach but I thoroughly enjoyed the process and love how it turned out.”
Still, the process was a lengthy and, at times, strenuous one. After months of working on the track nearly every day, Dang felt there was still something essential missing. Although originaly intended as an instrumental piece, he decided to reach out to his longtime friend and La Dispute vocalist Jordan Dreyer about a possible collaboration. Once Dreyer agreed, everything started to snap into place.
With Dang’s gorgeous yet stern backdrops unfurling like ominous black clouds, there is an air of tormented ecstasy that encircles Dreyer’s icy spoken word poetry. Like the music, he dwells on cycles on swelling and unswelling and how our lives shift from light to dark like the phases of the moon. He speaks of anger and “this year’s long, deep loneliness,” which would seem to lock the track into our collective moment of isolation. But the metaphors he employs speak to eternal truths: “Growing empty. Growing full. Growing empty.”
By the time the track reaches its steely second half, the focus has shifted from the personal to the communal. There are family and neighbors, shared memories and experiences, but also a collective sense of terror and dread. Alternating between emphatic bursts and plaintive lulls, the music remains bleak yet alluring. For some there is bliss beyond the roiling clouds; for the narrator, however, there is only an ever-present “nothingness” that no prayer can dispel. As individual components, both music and words are compelling reflections on duality and the cyclical nature of existence. But it’s the fusion of the two that lifts the track into something more lasting and grandiose.
“Jordan has this amazing gift of storytelling, which I’ve always been fond of and certainly connect with,” Dang says. “This track could’ve been a standalone drone track, but with his voice, it is elevated and it paints an incredibly gorgeous, dark picture that compliments the music well as if it was meant to be.”
Listen below.
“Moonsong / Nothingness” is available for purchase via Bandcamp. 100% of the proceeds will be donated to Planned Parenthood of Michigan and Feminist Women’s Health Center in Atlanta.
Hisself will perform on Fri., Aug. 5 at the EARL in support of Of the Vine (Album Release), Shy Low, and Initium. Doors open at 8 p.m. Admission is $12 in advance or $15 DOS. 21+ to enter.
More Info
Bandcamp: hisself.bandcamp.com
Instagram: @johnnydang