by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
There’s a difference between a singer/songwriter and a one-person band. You don’t come across a lot of the latter, and its even more rare to come across a one-person noise rock band. Then again, Oakland’s Reptoid is a rare breed to say the least. The mutant manifestations of Jordan Sobolew are all played live, contorting sounds into triggered noise and mangled industrial fury since 2014. After several EPs, the wait for Reptoid’s full length debut is nearly over with the release of Worship False Gods due out August 28th via Learning Curve Records (Blacklisters, New Primals, Bummer). The band shared the first single and opening tracking “Planned Obsolescence” a few weeks back and they’ve returned with “Void Filler".
Bursting out with a primal immediacy, the off-kilter electronics and pounding rhythm lay the framework for Reptoid’s sonic impulses. The drums skitter across your ears (we recommend listening on headphones) and synths warp into a tangled mess of chip-tune like sound, while Sobolew takes unpredictable pauses to keep everything feeling off center and willingly askew, with several shifts that go from jazzy to doom in the shadows of industrial noise. It’s big, weird, and menacing, a bleak look into the void.
Speaking the song, Sobolew shared:
“This song is about staring into the void. It’s about existential dread. Humans have constructed elaborate belief systems and explanations to try to understand our time on this planet, why we are here, and what happens after, in order to fill a void we feel inside. We try to fill the void with careers, substances, religions, the quests for wealth and power, but no one has all the answers. Maybe because they don’t exist or maybe because we aren’t meant to know. From the abyss we came and from the abyss we shall return, whatever it may be."