Dis Fig's challenging, cathartic work ranges from boundary-breaking DJ sets to post-industrial noise and performance art. Several years after making the astounding
In Blue with
the Bug, she teamed up with
the Body, a duo who have always resisted categories but never fail to produce unrelentingly bleak and heavy music.
Orchards of a Futile Heaven is sludgy and apocalyptic like one would expect from such a collaboration, but there's delicate elements which give the smoldering fire and ashes an ethereal glow. "Eternal Hours" is a march of crunching static with floating dub echoes, countering intimate sighs with harrowing screeches. "To Walk a Higher Path" incorporates field recordings of whoops and hollers into a fractured, buzzing rhythmic framework, setting up for a sort of chain reaction between the calm and harsh vocals.
Dis Fig's multi-tracked harmonies coalesce into an anguished wail during "Dissent, Shame," which strangely feels like the album's most pop-influenced moment. By the end of the album, though,
Dis Fig's vocals sound as tormented as
the Body's
Chip King. "Coils of Kaa" is a nine-minute dirge filled with haunted shrieks and thudding percussive waves. "Back to the Water" starts out calmly but soon turns into a sort of torch song from hell, with
Dis Fig lamenting "I miss you" before being engulfed in distorted throbbing.
The Body and
Dis Fig make perfect sense as collaborators, and
Orchards of a Futile Heaven is appropriately beautiful and terrifying. ~ Paul Simpson
