Tabs Out | Track Premiere: The Exit Bags – Gargoyles

Track Premiere: The Exit Bags – Gargoyles

Drongo Tapes LTD is having a riveting 2021 out on the west coast. In between a litany of releases that run the gamut between ambient slowcore to free jazz and righteous post-hardcore, the Seattle bedroom based label is teaming up with the Iowa-based Joyless Youth for the release of The Exit Bag’s Tower of Quiet on October 22nd. It’s an album that honestly might qualify as all the genres I mentioned above, with an extra touch of existential dread running through these crooked tracks. A warped minefield of a tape if we’re calling things even.

Coming after the frigid industrial-gaze of the single Shingles, Gargoyles is the second track Drongo HQ has unleashed from Exit Bags’ Tower of Quiet. We here at Tabs Out are pleased to be premiering it out here for y’all today, complete with a video. Gargoyles is a slow thumper fit for the seasonal collapse. Lumbering drums and fizzles of guitar feedback sound of a recorder at its most ominous. Still, Michael James–the sole member of the Exit Bags–uses double track to create a set of hushed harmonies. It’s sparse and icy, staying low to the ground in a way that evokes the ominous. Yet there’s a clear heart that provides space for yourself to find a solace in and hum through your own demons. If you’ve been a Flenser-head, then Kyle Bates’ mixing and Nicholas Wilbur’s mastering touches will tickle ya. “probably best listened to with headphones, seated, and left alone,” is Michael James’ wish and I highly implore you to follow.

Tower of Quiet is out October 22nd, on tape on Drongo Tapes and on CD on Joyless Youth