Persher, the duo of Arthur Cayzer (Pariah) and Jamie Roberts (Blawan), take the same subversive, boundaryless approach to extreme music that underpins their electronic explorations. The pair together run the influential Voam label, whose releases are as forward-thinking as they are eclectic. Their output as producers is always highly anticipated in the dance world, in part because of their affinity for expression beyond a trend - an independent streak that shares much in common with the philosophical ethos of punk, hardcore and extreme metal. Cayzer and Roberts started Persher as an opportunity to explore their shared love and extensive knowledge of heavy music. The duo’s debut release, the limited-edition Man With The Magic Soap CD thundered out of the gates as an astounding statement of intent - sidestepping underground orthodoxy with gleeful buzz-saw riffs and baleful howls enveloped in coruscating noise and texture, sounding like a bad trip at a basement show. Persher’s debut album Sleep Well manages to be even more ferocious and innovative, as direct and incisive as it is ingenious.
On Sleep Well, Cayzer and Roberts take a decidedly unconventional approach to writing, using the full potential of the studio in their exploration of extreme music. What sounds like a live band performance is more often than not an amalgam of many different sessions, the duo applying techniques from electronic music to heavier sonics. Recording in Roberts’ studio at Funkhaus, the home of the former East German state-owned radio station, Cayzer would improvise long takes on guitar and bass, contorted and mutated by Robert’s using his extensive modular setup to add weight and texture. This primordial ooze of raw sonics was then chopped up and reassembled into bristling hooks and corrosive atmospheres. The duo’s playful, exuberant approach to making music is palpable throughout Sleep Well - evident as much in the album’s absurdist themes and lyrics as its exhilarating sonics. “Medieval Soup From The Milkbar” references a particularly bad mid-studio session meal of gray, gruel-like soup, which seeps into the track’s noxious slurry and stomach-churning riffs, while “Portable Aquarium” references a cup of herbal tea overflowing with foliage. The duo’s wry and often self-deprecating sense of humor allows them to find inspiration even in the most seemingly mundane of life’s events.
Persher’s Sleep Well provides a daring, revelatory expansion on heavy music’s myriad mutations. The duo use their production skills and wry humor to embrace the powerful release they find in extremes. Persher’s debut album exudes the sheer joy of making music unconstrained by genre-boundaries, as gleefully weird as it is visceral and primal.
