Five from Five: KEN mode's Jesse Matthewson's Favorite Records From the Last Half-Decade

Canadian noise nuts KEN mode are set to drop their new album Void as a follow up to 2022’s Null, one of my favorite albums of last year. Recorded around the same time, the album shares quite a few similarities with Void; but it also feels a bit grittier and desolate. Combined with its predecessor, the duo makes for a complete whole when placed next to one another. There is a good mix of driving tunes like ”The Shrike” and longer former crushers like ”These Wires” that help to showcase the sheer amount of variety that KEN Mode are capable of.

To help give visibility into this variety, vocalist Jesse Matthewson has provided us with a list of 5 records from the last 5 years that have really resonated with him. Some of these can be heard within the confines of his music, others merely for inspiration. Read on below and see what music helps to feed his madness.

…

…

Jesse Matthewson's Favorite Five New Records From The Last Five Years

Everyone laments how it's harder and harder to find music that gives them that feeling they got from their favorite records when they were a teenager/early 20's. It's why so many people desperately cling to these records as a symbol of their dwindling youth, and a badge of an age where music was simply "better" than it is now. 

I get it. The older we get, the more responsibilities we have, your sources for new music pass you by, you get lost and genuinely have trouble making connections with new art that inevitably isn't even speaking the same emotional language you are anymore. 

It's for this reason that many of us try even harder to continue to keep that spark alive. Sure, I get it… it's a desperate attempt at clinging to the thing that makes you feel alive, as life continues to get scarier and scarier as you accept your own eventual mortality. 

Anyway, without new music, I fear for what I'd become. These are the top 5 records of the last 5 years that genuinely made me feel something:

Plebeian Grandstand - Rien ne suffit (2021)

This album hit me like a truck. It was everything I needed in late 2021, after dealing with the pandemic shitshow for the last two years. Equal parts black metal, hardcore, analog synth driven industrial, with elements of jazz, I fell hard. It may be my favourite new record in a decade. It plays like a soundtrack, ever evolving, with the most intense emotionality I've heard in maybe any record. The riffs feel alive, like a creeping mould growing through all of the cracks presented, and consuming everything in their path. I was aware of the band before this, but for one reason or another, previous records had never grabbed me by the shoulders, shook me and screamed in my face the way this one did. 

…

Scarcity - Aveilut (2022)

2022 was a heavy year for releases...it's like everyone was trying to work something out of their system; whatever that could be? Scarcity just so happened to be the one that spoke the loudest to me as the year progressed. Atmospheric black metal leaning heavy on the hypnotic classical style guitar work. Thematically, for me, it fits in with the Plebeian Grandstand record, for a piece of music that is constantly evolving, with riffing that lurches forward almost like an organic being bending its way into new terrain so it can fit. The way it builds and recedes like a piece of classical music, it's the sort of record you have to listen to all the way through at once, otherwise it feels like you're cheating the art. I later met the composer, Brendon Randall-Myerss, who is in fact a classical composer and guitarist. Figures.

…

Ex:Re – Ex:Re (2018) and with 12 Ensemble (2021)

A solo record of Daughter singer, Elena Tonra; I was first made aware of this project upon the live rendition released in 2021, a collaboration with 12 Ensemble, and I'm still annoyed that they never did a physical release for this version. Arguably, I prefer the live version, as the string performances and choices on the live rendition of these songs make them all the more powerful. Gut wrenching and emotional - what would you even call this? Indie rock? Folk'ish? Eh, who cares, this is HEAVY. 

…

Hilary Woods - Birthmarks (2020)

A similar heaviness to the previous album, but a little dirtier, with mild touches of scraping deep industrial aesthetics - like rust on a deep old drum being beat around a fire. Scraping strings, with Hilary's haunting voice echoing through the music. The moment I heard the opening track "Tongues of Wild Boar" I was immediately won over. The layer of grime over top of this recording is what really drove it home for me. What would you even call this? Folk industrial? I never know how to describe less metallic music. This is also HEAVY. 

…

Mourir - Animal Bouffe Animal (2020)

This record came out just before Covid-19 shut the world down, and kind of became an anthem for the tortured desperation going on in my head. Guitarist/Vocalist Olivier Lolmède is also in Plebeian Grandstand, and clearly there's something about his music and the music of his peers that is striking a chord with me over the last 5 years. This project is a full band extension of Vermine, a precursor where he handled all of the instruments, which is also excellent - but with a full band seeing the vision through, it's all the more powerful.

I'm a huge fan of Amaury Sauvé's production, and he's managed to make a noisy, somewhat atmospheric black metal band sound huge and powerful - in a muscle + sinew way - which I frequently feel is lacking in black metal. Those drums. I love it. 

…