INTERVIEW: Diminishing
'The Unnamable' is one of the bleakest, harshest records of the year - and we were brave enough to talk to its creators about it.
You might recall a particularly nasty entry among the June selections of our THE DEVIL’S MONTH feature, something that I initially described as “music”, between quotes just like that, then said that it was “situated somewhere in the wasteland between industrial, harsh noise, dark ambient and drone” and raved that “even at its most bleakly atmospheric, ‘The Unnamable’ never meanders past the point of structure, never spirals into randomness and never disappears up its own behind with some kind of experimentalist pretentiousness,” summing the whole unpleasantness up as “a gripping, uneasy journey from start to finish.” Well, that’s Diminishing in a nutshell, and after living with their debut album for a good four months after its release, I clearly maintain all of those things and more. Because 2023 is spewing forth dark and disturbing music of superlative quality at a pace bigger than poor little me can cope, I never gave them the coveted (ahem) Band of the Week accolade, but they would have deserved it in spades, so let’s cover up that blemish a little bit by remembering how great ‘The Unnamable’ is, and by actually talking to the two guys behind this ungodly racket, Dave Brenner and Lane Oliver.
Hit play on the thing, crank up the volume (I believe I’ve called opener ‘An Emptiness‘ “Khanate-esque”, so it’ll get you right in the mood) and enjoy a fine interview with these two wonderful gentlemen. Oh, and get used to Lane’s presence here in this here joint, too - I’ve just had the displeasure of listening to the entirety Yatsu’s new album ‘It Can’t Happen Here’ and, well, yikes. Go and listen to the 1:53 of it that is available for now, and try to multiply that by twenty, in every way possible. Coming soon!
“I go through some pretty awful things when I record vocals; retching/gagging, sometimes I lose my voice for a bit, on ‘The Culmination of Years of Self-Abuse’ I got so lightheaded I came extremely close to passing out.”
- Dave Brenner
Can you tell us a bit about the origins of Diminishing, how did you guys decide to get together and start this band?
Dave Brenner: This was initiated as a collaborative album between our respective projects. My solo project Gridfailure and Lane’s now defunct project Feel Happiness did a split record together in 2019, and Lane has been supporting and contributing guitar elements to Gridfailure records almost since the project’s inception in 2016. By the time we had the split out, we had already started merging sounds into what at that point was going to be a collaborative album. Lane and crew formed Yatsu around that time and he decided to end Feel Happiness as an entity, so we were just left with this half-completed album. I didn’t want to just soak it as a Gridfailure record since Lane had written so much of the content, so we decided to launch a new project with it. It then took us about a year to come up with the band name after that; I handled the art, photography, and videos, and got in touch with my bro Dan Emery from Black Matter Mastering and Anti-Corporate Music who mastered the record and helped release the cassette. He’s worked with a ton of incredible artists – Kool Keith, Dälek, Chrome Waves, Ultramagnetic MC’s, Krieg, Lost Dog Street Band, and his own band Thetan – so it is great to be a part of that collective.
Lane Oliver: From 2011-2019 I did the whole music journalist thing. I co-ran a blog called American Aftermath and then a blog called Svbterranean after that. During that span of time I worked with Dave in a “professional” manner with him co-running Earsplit and all. We became good friends over time and Dave pretty much nailed the rest in his response above. It was only a matter of time before we started making noise together.
Was there any initial idea of how you would sound, did you specifically join up to play crushing industrial/dark ambient/drone noise horror?
Dave: Listening to our respective solo work, there’s generally nothing remotely happy to be found, so I think the dense darkness just came naturally. I think working on this through the pandemic likely naturally helped form some ominous tones as well. There’s definitely an edge of my Gridfailure stuff in here as we were treating this as a collab at first, but once we established Diminishing as its own act, we reworked a lot of it in hopes of creating a different approach.
Lane: There weren’t any preconceived ideas for what the project could or would sound like, it just happened organically. As Dave alluded to above, I think the sound of our respective projects at the time wormed their way into this record. It was unavoidable. I think wrapping this up in the middle of the pandemic, in addition to experiencing existential and interpersonal issues, influenced its bleak sound. But, also, I think creating dark and chaotic music is just a default for us.
How do songs get started, is there any usual trigger, like a noise, or a beat, or even a conceptual idea that kickstarts a piece?
Dave: With Lane located in the Dallas, Texas area and me living just a few miles north of New York City, everything was recorded remotely at our respective home setups and mixed steadily as we worked on each track. There was a lot of mixing involved. I suppose there was a riff of inception or specific drone sequence that started each song, but it’s more just like playing off of each other. I created most of the murky beats and percussion on the album, but most of that was added to those songs after a bulk of the tones were already captured. We each came up with ideas for delivering the vocals, leaving room for each other to do our thing.
Lane: Yeah, the songs were constructed in exquisite corpse style. Like Dave mentioned, one of us would start with a riff or a soundscape and then the other would build upon that. There are some tracks where the entire bulk of the song was completed, and then we just went back-and-forth adding extra layers of noise and ambience to fill it out. An example would be the track ‘No Fire, No Fanfire’, where the main portion of that track is just an 11-minute guitar improv session I did. Then it was just a matter of taking turns to fill in the missing pieces.
How would you describe ‘The Unnamable’? I find there are a few parallels that can be traced to other acts, but nothing very solid. Feels like you guys found your own filthy little sonic hole right from the beginning!
Dave: With our online descriptions, press copy, and so on, we definitely list some heavy noise/drone/experimental acts we both consume and respect; Khanate, Nurse With Wound, Merzbow, Gnaw Their Tongues, and I suppose Godflesh is a simply unavoidable act of note in creating this type of caustic post-industrial drone. Lane definitely adds a more pronounced guitar sound than I do in Gridfailure, and he’s able to create clean vocals that sound a million times better than I, so the comparisons we hear to The Downward Spiral originate there in those fragile, pained, cleaner vocals. With this record, we naturally sort of maintained a sense of dread and tension that never really relents; the last song somewhat “erupts” but it’s far from a finale or resolution; just a backlog of the tension from the entire record reaching maximum density.
Lane: Thanks! I think we wanted to find our own little sound and I think we achieved that for the most part. We definitely have a ton of influences, as Dave mentioned above, but I don’t think we really wear them on our sleeves much.
There’s a mention of field recordings in the press release, and I think I could identify some in all the cacophony, but would you like to give us any examples of what exactly you recorded and how did those sounds end up on the record?
Dave: With Gridfailure I’m constantly infusing rain, wind, fire, urban sounds, sirens, and all sorts of elements I record outdoors into the mix, and we did some of that here. The ghostly moaning elements of the opening song ‘An Emptiness’ came from a dozen or so of my family members walking through this abandoned train tunnel in Central Pennsylvania, with me recording them from the other end of the tunnel. Beyond that, we both contributed vocals, guitars, keys/synth. I played bass, and created any percussion on the record. Lane wrote 99% of the lyrics.
Lane: I will be completely honest. As far as field recordings, I couldn't tell you what’s all in there! We worked on this for about five years and we recorded so many things and we mixed them in such a way that it’s a wash of gloomy sound. I would have to go back and look at the stems to see what exactly was recorded. Ha!
The lyrical theme of the album is, of course, not easy, as the music amply suggests. Would you like to elaborate a little more on what kind of catharsis you guys went through and what are you manifesting with these sounds?
Dave: With Gridfailure, I’m pretty much always writing all the lyrics/concepts and delivering most of the vocals. With Lane creating most of the lyrics and conceptual basis and us splitting vocal duties with Diminishing, everything takes on a sound of its own. I go through some pretty awful things when I record vocals; retching/gagging, sometimes I lose my voice for a bit, on ‘The Culmination of Years of Self-Abuse’ I got so lightheaded I came extremely close to passing out.
Lane: The lyrical themes are definitely not easy at all. Existential dread, interpersonal issues, self-destruction, grief, all of these topics permeate the record. I think I used this record to help “bury” some of the things that were plaguing my mind throughout the years we were working on it. Are those thoughts and feelings completely gone? No, but I think this self-immolating music helped me process them a little better. I heard something said somewhere, and I don’t remember where, but it was a sentiment along the lines of “art is for purging.” I think that can be true and that’s definitely what I did here.
How has the feedback been since the release? Do you feel that you’ve connected with a few people?
Dave: We’ve had a few very cool reviews, a handful of interviews, and some solid media support with audio/video premieres through the likes of Decibel Magazine and Metal Injection, but we are well aware that this type of thing has a more limited audience than a classic death metal or doom band and we’re a very new act in a sea of steady new music flooding the airwaves. We enjoy creating this output so we’re not taking into consideration the reaction we may or may not receive. Of course we love to hear from folks who have checked out the record.
Lane: Yeah, we have no delusions about the type of music we created here. We know it’s difficult. As such, anyone who has taken the time to listen to it and comment on it is truly appreciated.
Would you consider live shows with Diminishing, is that in your future plans?
Dave: Living a half a continent away from each other is going to present a massive hurdle in doing this in the live setting, but we’d love to make it happen.
Lane: Absolutely would love to do it. Improv noise session with other collaborators? Writing a piece just for live performance to play and record? I’m open to any of it. The thing I like about this project is that there are no rules or expectations. Dave and I both have busy lives and we respect that about one another. When we do find the time to work on this project, we make the most of our time and make sure progress gets made. I say that to say that if we ever tried to coordinate a live performance of some sort, I know that we could make it happen.
What else do you intend to do, I suppose this is a band/project you’d like to continue doing, and have more albums and releases? Hopefully?
Dave: Yes, we’ve already got more music in the works. We’ll probably have a new EP/shorter release of some sort out in the first quarter of 2024, and definitely another album at some point. We’re both incredibly busy with our home lives and our other respective work and projects; Lane’s primary band Yatsu has a new LP coming out and they play a lot of shows. I’ve got my full-time PR company Earsplit, dozens of other Gridfailure records/projects in the works – including my Sixth Mass-Extinction Skullduggery III album with over twenty-five guests including my bro Steve Austin from Today Is The Day – additional video work and other musical projects to deal with. But hopefully in the next few months we’ll strap in and complete this new release. I’m putting our first shirt design into production now. We definitely have plenty of cassettes of The Unnamable available.
Lane: The potential EP in question is a 23+ minute track based on a completely improvised guitar session I recorded in 2021. It’s completely different from anything on The Unnamable and I am excited for it. There are also two other potential songs that I started working on that will probably end up on the next full-length. Those are also completely different from anything on The Unnamable. I am very stoked to see how this project morphs. Aside from Diminishing, my grind/hardcore adjacent band Yatsu is putting out its debut full-length on November 3 via The Ghost Is Clear and Roman Numeral Records. Aside from music I am a writer and I published my first novella, titled Stag, back in January of this year. I also have a short story being published in an anthology that is due out sometime this month.
Find Diminishing on Bandcamp, Facebook, Instagram and Spotify.
‘The Unnamable’ is out now on tape through Anti-Corporate Music.