Multiple Narratives

Graveyard of Forgotten Gods by NoiseTheorem

A woman’s voice intones the melody of a child’s bedtime song (hence the track’s title, “Lullabye”) amid throbbing synthesized bass and squawking, barely comprehensible (purposefully so) emergency-services chatter. In combination, the elements suggest multiple narratives converging toward tragedy. The same could be said of the album as a whole: Graveyard of Forgotten Gods, a three-track EP from NoiseTheorem, who’s based in Chicago, Illinois. Old-school video-game projectile noises enliven a dubby, spacey, downtempo techno on “Tears for Venus,” which conjures up the likelihood that someone managed to recreate a didgeridoo simulacrum inside of a hacked Second Life account (and just so there’s no ambiguity: that’s meant as a compliment). And on “Song for Ellie,” a gothy procession of dark beats and whirly effects finds the tiniest glimmer of hope in a gentle keyboard motif.

Get the full set at noisetheorem.bandcamp.com. More from Noise Theorem at noisetheorem.com and soundcloud.com/noisetheorem. (The voice on “Lullabye” is Janet Kownacki’s.)