Kush Arora and his dark and noisy post-dub/industrial project ONLY NOW are no mystery to these pages. And there’s a good goddamned reason for that – because this project by the San Francisco-based producer/musician is redefining the DNA of post-industrial and dark, apocalyptic, and atmospheric electronic music, and we’re huge supporters of what he’s accomplished with this incredible project of his. Kush’s brand new upcoming EP under the ONLY NOW moniker – Timeslave – will soon drop to become testament of this indisputable fact.
States Kush:
When Only Now was started, it was literal with it’s name: presenting landscapes that had no boundary to the past or future, only with the moment in mind from a cosmic standpoint. Distinctly esoteric and ritualistic, Only Now was to be “power music” for the spirit and body to propel the listener to a self awareness of being, verses a higher state of consciousness or transcendence to a particular plane.
At first there were a few records of dystopian, cyberpunk, and political themed references and inspirations, but as the project progressed into the beginnings of this record, I felt a much more esoteric calling, speaking of the matters of all things unchanging and enveloping in this universe in my inspiration. The one binding force is TIME. Our power is how we interact and manipulate, or disconnect from time. Money can buy anything, but our mortality (so we think) is bound by it as well.
Title track “Timeslave” first came into being, encompassing all those themes.
The two pieces of “Psychic War I and II” approach the only thing a human can do to conquer the constraints of linear time, which is extend their ability to merge past and future and see the future or past. This leads us to “Remote Viewing” is conceptually tied to “Psychic War” as it touches on governments attempts to add mental warfare to their arsenal, forging attempts at crossing the 4th dimension.
ONLY NOW‘s Timeslave EP drops on June 30 through the Infinite Machine label (PRE-ORDER) – and today we’re proud to give you a taste of this post-industrial sensorial onslaught through the shapeshifting patterns of mind-twisting track Psychic War 2 which is streaming below.
The Timeslave EP is another harrowing statement in the remarkable vision and intents of a project that knows no boundaries or creative restraints, and which lives with the sole purpose to set the mind free through the power of sound and its sapient and conscious molding into a weapon of self-determination. Influenced in this project by the likes of Dead Can Dance, Coil, Techno Animal, Skinny Puppy and the whole Wax Trax catalog, and showcasing more traditional excursions in the niche scenes kuduro, dark afrohouse and tribal sounds, with ONLY NOW Kush aimed to fuse all this pletora of influences and inspirations with shards of tuned metal, voice and proto real synthesis, all the way to Buraka Som Sistema and haunting film soundtracks – still keeping the core of the project firmly rooted into unbridled experimentation through a wall of sonic low end.
Art by Eleventh Vision
