West Coast artist Restless Mosaic presents 'Lost Within This Time', the first taste of his forthcoming third album 'Quality Mirrors', due out on March 7. The song takes many surprising turns, all of them dark. Developed around elevator samples that came to form four separate layers of this song, this lead track features vocals by Anji Bee of renowned dreampop duo Lovespirals, singing ethereally and as claustrophobically as the slabs of the unsettling soundscape behind her.

In the video, Anji plays a ghost haunting an elevator. With Restless Mosaic (a.k.a. Brandon Isleib) and Anji Bee residing quite a distance from one another, they shot their scenes separately. Portraying a ghost who lures Isleib into her haunted elevator – where she lives in a concert poster. Now entrapped, she transmits his soul into the poster, essentially taking her place. Isleib explains, "My home city let me and my producer film in a city-owned office building that hasn’t been used in years – a perfect setting to make a campy ‘80s horror story".

"'Lost Within This Time' is about my mental state post-pandemic. Like many, I’m finding it hard to re-acclimate. Places I used to go have closed. I quit doing the things I used to do. Many people I thought I knew either disappeared or showed sides that made me pull away. Society both on and offline seems much more hostile, and as a consequence I’ve become guarded," says Anji Bee.

"Working with Brandon let me express my thoughts in a slightly edgier manner, as the instrumental he presented me with is a lot more experimental. The elevator sounds, in particular, are quite eerie, so I had fun playing that up with an ethereal refrain of “I’m lost” – which sounds like it could be a ghost calling up the elevator shaft, or wandering down a long, dark hallway."

Brandon Isleib is an electronic songmaker based in Everett, Washington. The name Restless Mosaic derives from the idea of a mosaic's intricacy and structure, and how the parts and the whole relate in a way that they only make sense when they come together. In the same way, he combines sounds and genres, usually considered disparate, connecting them into something greater than any one of them.

Through these song structures, transitions and balanced textures, and by anchoring certain aspects, the listener can enjoy grounded music and enjoy these sonic adventures – explorations that embody a sense of restlessness. Noted as offering up “a setting in which listeners can expect the unexpected” with music that is “a boon for your neuroplasticity”, Restless Mosaic's music has been streamed over 3 million views via YouTube.

"I met Anji Bee through the listening party for the remaster of Love Spirals Downwards’ 'Flux' album. I had noticed she’d made a lot of different song styles, many of them dark, so I inquired about a collaboration. When she expressed interest, I started composing a sort of gothic metal song but swapping out all the sounds for ‘80s synth-jazz instead – something to fit both Anji’s angel and chanteuse sides," explains Brandon Isleib.

"That fit nicely with samples recorded of a creepy elevator in a hotel I had stayed at, and I started building the next part of the song around that. That gave the most space for Anji to put a verse, but she surprised me by wanting to make the denser chorus music into the verse. The ensuing rearrangement yielded the unusual structure of starting as a full-fledged synth song, then going into a barely melodic industrial phase, then gradually introducing both halves to each other. I draw a lot of inspiration from Underworld’s production style: set up the song’s rules and then start breaking them. 'Lost Within This Time' does this while showcasing Anji’s versatility and ability to make the bizarre sound right."

Anji Bee adds, "The frenetic, skittering energy in the first part seemed suited to my lyrics' theme. The fretless bass reminded me of music I loved in the '80s, like Mick Karn and Kate Bush. I tried to channel their vocal theatricality in my performance. Though I’m best known as a singer, I’ve dabbled in spoken word for decades, and I enjoyed incorporating a bit of that too. This is a personal lyric, but I think it’s pretty universal, and I hope that others in a similar period of their life will find some comfort in the song."

Apart from Anji Bee, the 'Quality Mirrors' album features contributions by New York singer-songwriter Rose Alaimo and prolific rapper Declaime (Aloe Blacc, Madlib, and Flying Lotus), with whom Restless Mosaic is already working on a new album that brings Declaime's poetry to Isleib's back catalog of instrumentals.

As of January 14, 'Lost Within This Time' is available everywhere, including Apple Music, Spotify and Bandcamp. The full 'Quality Mirrors' album will be released on March 7.

CREDITS
Music written and performed by Brandon Isleib
Recorded, mixed and produced by Brandon Isleib and Anji Bee
Lyrics, melody and vocals by Anji Bee
Additional production and effects by Ryan Lum
Mastered by Vincent Villuis / Ultimae Records
Album artwork and music video by Jennifer Wee
Anji Bee photos and video footage shot by Anji Bee
Brandon Isleib photos shot by Jennifer Wee

PRE-ORDER

Death metal battalion VITRIOL is now unleashing its third new single, "Shame and Its Afterbirth," along with a dual guitar and bass play-through clip! The track is taken from the band's upcoming sophomore full-length, 'Suffer & Become,' which is due on January 26, 2024 via Century Media Records! The furious new song and video can be found below.

VITRIOL guitarist and vocalist Kyle Rasmussen comments, "'Shame' begins the story of 'Suffer & Become' with a celebration of our nature. It speaks to how modernity estranges one from the voiceless voice within them, and on the consequences of ignoring the call of their instincts. It also happens to be my favorite song (musically) that I've ever written. I set out to carve deep valleys and build tall mountains when writing this album, and I believe this song to be the best example of that achievement."

Pre-orders are now live for 'Suffer & Become' HERE. The album will be available digitally as well as in Standard CD Jewelcase, Ltd. Deep Blood Red LP (All ex-US Retail), Orange Crush LP (All US Retail), and Red / Yellow / Black Transp. Splatter LP (Band Exclusive).

For Portland, Oregon's VITRIOL, nothing comes easy. Nothing. The title of their second Century Media album, 'Suffer & Become,' says it all. "The title really sums it up," says guitarist and vocalist Kyle Rasmussen. "I pushed things to a point while making this album where it almost became untenable. Things that were supposed to be done in weeks took months. It wasn't easy, but I think it was suffering well spent."

At the core of 'Suffer & Become' lies a profound sense of extremity and unease. This very essence defines Vitriol as the vanguard in death metal's evolutionary path—a sonic landscape characterized by its profound darkness, density, and the infusion of nanotechnological precision interwoven with intense, seething emotions. Not easy listening in the slightest. Since forming in 2013, Rasmussen and longtime co-conspirator, bassist, and co-vocalist Adam Roethlisberger have worked with a single-minded vision: to push the genre to its breaking point and invent a new uncompromising paradigm in the process. VITRIOL is a masterclass in pain – and that's just their jumping-off point.

Recounting VITRIOL's initial journey into the outer fringes of extremity, Rasmussen is characteristically thoughtful. "I was starving for something that didn't pull any punches," says Kyle of VITRIOL's caustic mission statement, which detonated into the realm of extreme metal with 2013's 'Antichrist' demo. "Death metal was important to me because it speaks to an aggression, a frustration that I had when I was younger. It wasn't just a sonic connection but an emotional connection, which made music almost a means to an end. What I saw happening in extreme metal at the time was almost a removal of emotion in favor of musicality, that fire, that piss and vinegar spirit. Basically, I wanted something that wanted me dead."

With 2017's 'Pain Will Define Their Death' EP, VITRIOL took its spot as one of the underground's most uncompromising exponents, leading them to join forces with Century Media. The resultant album, 2019's "To Bathe from the Throat of Cowardice," was nothing short of a crucial next step for the band and the genre itself. Decibel Magazine said, "Vitriol leave no doubt they are one of the best the genre has to offer, with shades of Nile, Hate Eternal, and Anaal Nathrakh frequently peeking through." Hitting the road that year, at first in Europe with Nile and then in the US with Cattle Decapitation and Atheist, and then Vader before the onset of Covid, VITRIOL was quick to establish themselves as much of an uncompromising force onstage as they are on record.

"Doing 'Black Seeds of Vengeance' alongside Karl Sanders [of Nile] onstage in Europe on our very first tour was nothing short of a 'pinch me' moment," Kyle recounts from VITRIOL's early touring days. "More recently, we were touring with Morbid Angel, and Steve Tucker, who is my favorite Morbid Angel vocalist, came out of his dressing room in a VITRIOL t-shirt and exclaimed that we were one of his favorite new bands! That blew my mind as a fan, first and foremost – a total 'Holy Fuck!' moment."

'Suffer & Become' is nothing short of a benchmark for VITRIOL (rounded out by guitarist Daniel Martinez and Matt Kilner). It's as dense and blackened as anything to erupt from Rasmussen's vision of sonic disorder. From the onset of the opening track, "Shame and Its Afterbirth," there's a new sense of openness, grandeur, and occasional beauty in VITRIOL's aural arsenal. "I wanted to have an album that had a stark duality to it," says Kyle. "Very high highs and very low lows. We're very familiar with the lows but not so much with the triumphant highs. I wanted the album to have more of a sense of optimism to it, both lyrically and musically. I wanted the album to convey a sense of optimism that probably gets lost in the black maelstrom that is the first album."

Produced by Rasmussen and mixed by Dave Otero (Archspire, Cattle Decapitation), 'Suffer &

Become' isn't merely the sound of VITRIOL upping the ante in death metal's musical arms race; it is also the sound of salvation for its driving force. "Living in the world of that first album was very difficult for me," says Rasmussen. "It's not a nice place. It was very intentionally imbalanced in the same way a horror film is imbalanced. I wanted a healthier world for me to live in, and I believe I achieved that."

Not that the writing and recording of 'Suffer & Become' was anything short of soul-rending. Rasmussen labored over the creation of the album in the studio, on tour in hotel rooms, to the point of painstaking obsessiveness. Kyle is straightforward about the grueling record-making process and its personal impact. "The record feels a bit like a Jungian Dante's Inferno," he states. "Plumbing the circles of my personal, psychological, and spiritual hell and then purposely refocusing it so it's not the unhinged, dark catharsis of the first album. This record is a lot more vulnerable."

Songs like "Weaponized Loss" or "The Flowers of Sadism" are what Kyle describes as a "dark baptism" in comparison to the absolute darkness of "To Bathe…". The sound of VITRIOL remains as joyless and dark as ever, but with a glimmer of hope. VITRIOL has taken its trauma-put-to-sound approach to the next level and discovered a new sense of beauty in the blackness. 'Suffer & Become' is death metal with a bloody, beating heart.

Line-Up:

Kyle Rasmussen - Guitars and Vocals

Adam Roethlisberger - Bass and Vocals

Matt Kilner - Drums

Daniel Martinez - Guitars

Producer // Mixing // Mastering:

Dave Otero

Album artwork:

Dylan Humphries

Photo Credit:

Peter Beste

Bio:

Mike Gitter

Physical Formats:

Standard CD Jewelcase

Ltd. Deep Blood Red LP (All ex-US Retail)

Orange Crush LP (All US Retail)

Red / Yellow / Black Transp. Splatter LP (Band Exclusive)

Restless Mosaic presents 'Lost Within This Time' single featuring Lovespirals' icon Anji Bee

VITRIOL Reveals Play-Through Video for Furious New Song, "Shame and Its Afterbirth"