Photo by Yulissa Benitez

NYC band Lathe of Heaven make their return with their new single ‘Oblivion’. This comes ahead of their forthcoming album Aurora, which is out August 29th on the Sacred Bones imprint.

While the group is keeping in stride with their bold post-punk sonics, ‘Oblivion’ also leans close to the coldwave side of the fence. The moody instrumentation can be hypnotically calming at times while other moments are revving with intensity. The song also represents the band’s ability to weave between post-punk and new wave classicism as well as their feat for expanding the sound beyond it’s perceived borders. We’re here for it.

Regarding ‘Oblivion’, Lathe of Heaven’s Gage Allison mentioned:

“Say a word enough times and it begins to lose meaning. This is a phenomenon called semantic satiation and it is the underlying inspiration behind this song. One day I hope to publish a short story about a drug that, when taken in front of a mirror, triggers a sort of feedback loop which multiplies the users’ sense of self out of existence. Expanding on this, Descartes had an idea that the mind and body were essentially two different things. And that is how we experience the world – as a subject amongst objects – I don’t believe that this is wrong, I just like toying with the idea of being tricked into experiencing an essential oneness with the universe in a way that binds us in a great link of existence. Of course, I don’t plan on this story having a sort of happy ending. Framing this concept in this way shouts ‘esoteric hippy’ but that’s not what I’m going for… When it comes down to it too much of anything is almost always a bad thing and taking this drug will likely have dire consequences. Not to mention, setting this thought experiment up in this way essentially creates a paradox where the destruction of the mind-body dichotomy creates another dichotomy of experience, consequently reproducing the mode of being the user so happened to evade. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself… Let’s just say these lyrics are a prequel to this future project.