Christian Molenaar
Jeremiah XVII
Another artist might call an album like 𝘑𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘢𝘩 𝘟𝘝𝘐𝘐 their most challenging or adventurous. Across eleven tracks, searing theremins and pulsing reggaeton beats collide with downcast country and fairground field recordings. For Christian Molenaar, it's what counts as a pop record.
It would be tough to accuse a collection of songs spanning apocalyptic folk, feedback-drenched soul and steel guitar-laden bedroom pop of "selling out," but Molenaar uses his diverse musical palette as a springboard to launch the catchiest, most direct songwriting of his vast discography. 𝘑𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘢𝘩 𝘟𝘝𝘐𝘐 builds off the sound Molenaar introduced on February's 𝘔𝘶𝘴𝘢𝘤𝘦𝘢𝘦 𝘌𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘯𝘰𝘹, a boundary-breaking trip through chamber prog, post-punk, math metal and country, but where that album's ecstatic genre-hopping sprang forth as a pure expression of joy, 𝘑𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘢𝘩 𝘟𝘝𝘐𝘐 instead traces a mosaic of doomed relationships through circuit-bent synths and homemade guitar effects.
To create the album's distinct sound, Molenaar built a suite of DIY instruments, including optical theremins and homebrew synthesizers, all fed through hand-wired contact mics and bespoke fuzz pedals. "I needed to get further inside the sound," Molenaar says, "to really inhabit the process." But for all the squalling feedback and distorted vocals, 𝘑𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘢𝘩 𝘟𝘝𝘐𝘐 stands out on the strength of Molenaar's songwriting. Embracing the sadness and anger of a lifetime of failures and disappointments, Molenaar transmutes these negative emotions into his catchiest, most affecting material yet. An iconoclast notorious for the sheer breadth of his musical and literary knowledge, 𝘑𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘢𝘩 𝘟𝘝𝘐𝘐 finds Molenaar making—there's no other way to put it—his most stripped-down and personal album of his career.
