SOW DISCORD is the solo work of electronic artist David Coen [Whitehorse // Hemlock Ladder]. A cavernous, bass-heavy unrelenting sonic animal – this Naarm-based project has extracted the urgency, dissonance + brutality of extreme music and seamlessly blended it with his interest in hip hop, sampling + noisey composition.
We chatted to them ahead of their return to Boorloo//Perth for ALT//FEST at Badlands Bar on November 12.
Your debut full-length, Quiet Earth, came out in the year that wasn’t – 2020. Now that the material has had time to breathe, how do you feel it documented your personal soundscape during that time?
Quiet Earth was definitely steered in a much darker direction. In some ways, it was indirectly due to what was happening across the State during the making of that record. The bushfires happened and I just remember this extremely heavy air of hopelessness that was very difficult to remove yourself from. When you look out your window and all you see is smoke. Your entire house smells like fire. There was no visible sun for what felt like an eternity. It was hard to not have that kind of surreal experience impact your creative output and mentality.
I would say most people who were creating during that time would feel the same. So listening back to that record? Yeah, it's super bleak (haha). The album was done by the time COVID happened. I'm more of a studio dweller, so lockdowns were a great reason. Just stay indoors and work on music. I found the lockdowns to be a pretty productive time personally. Mentally, I’m not sure.
Several notable guests came along for the ride, including Benjamin Andrews (My Disco), Ethan McCarthy (Many Blessings), and The Body. Can you take us through how these artists became involved in Quiet Earth?
Ben Andrews (My Disco) has been a friend for a long time and I have always liked his approach to guitar playing. We spent a day tracking guitars and I took them away and chopped them up, much how I would approach using a sample.
Primitive Man is one of my favourite heavy bands, next to Corrupted, and Ethan has one of the most insane voices in extreme music. I was so stoked he was interested in contributing to the album. Watching From the Centre was one of those rare perfect results. A nice slow build. I would love to work with him again. He also designed the front cover image for Quiet Earth.
The Body are good friends from touring with them a bunch overseas with my band Whitehorse and we have previously talked about doing something together. Much like the other guests, it was a matter of me sending them rough ideas and them sending back stems. Then I would do further processing/arranging.
How is your most recent Opportunist / Leech Becomes Worm release the next chapter for Sow Discord?
The flexi release on AR-53 is a pretty good example of where Sow Discord is heading musically. I have always been a big fan of hip-hop music and, many years ago, I did a bunch of stuff under the name Ivens. I never really stopped making beats. I started Sow Discord to experiment with other musical interests and, over time, those ideas slowly made their way into the Sow Discord lexicon. It just made sense. Hip-hop is such a malleable form of music and it's where I learnt a lot of production methods and sampling has always been a big part of how I put things together. Groups like Techno Animal, Dalek and early EL-P stuff are big influences.
Can you delve into the creative process behind one of the tracks off your latest?
There is really no strict method. Songs usually start with drums and then I work around that. Ninety per cent of things begin on my sampler, then get reshaped/rearranged in the computer.
What would be your ideal contemporary Australian gig (in an ideal world) and why?
The dream bill show would be Suffer, Geld, Nerve, Collapsed Toilet Vietnam and Sow Discord.
ALT // FEST is on Saturday, November 12 at Badlands Bar. Tickets available now here.