photo by Niles Davis Small
The folk orchestrations of "Hate Yourself to the Core" by Austin based 'experimental folk' outfit Middle Sattre, from the onset, runs. With a percolating acoustic guitar engine, juxtaposed with swells, collisions of other sounds, some that feel like ambience, like memories crushing in on the storytelling space, creates tensions, emotionally out of breath moments. The dreamy, melancholy, thoughtful track sees frontman Hunter Prueger 'confronting his internalized homophobia and shame leftover from growing up gay in the Mormon church and pivoting towards self-acceptance'.
Prueger shares:
"I think a lot of people have a hard time understanding internalized homophobia. There’s this idea that if you’re gay, then you can’t be homophobic. I wanted to write a song that very clearly lays it all out and explains how this can happen."
Prueger sings his story here in hushed somber tones and the the timbre of the guitar wash is complex. Complex in it's emotional arc. While the the vocal melodies lull you in sometimes in a beautiful lullaby-esque way while confessing hard open wounds. The confessional style is incredibly moving, blood and tears against beautiful sonic ascensions.
"Read from the booklet
That’s always sitting on my desk
Do all I can not to arouse
This is a serious offense
Look at the mirror now
As it reflects my naked body
There are two things I’m better off without
And I’d walk right to the kitchen and
With a knife, I’d cut them off
If I wasn’t so scared of blood
Just to never lust anymore
God, I hate myself to the core"
LINER NOTES:
[Middle Sattre originated as a solo home-recording project in Salt Lake City using a cheap microphone and discarded instruments acquired from working at a middle school. Gradually, Prueger looped in collaborators from around the country, laying the groundwork for what would eventually become an eight-piece band. In early 2022, he moved to Austin, TX with S. Wallace (vocals, keyboard) and Mitch Stevens (guitar, banjo, piano). From there the band grew to include Jordan Walsh (prepared guitar, drums), Juniper Card (guitar, drums), Kai Jasmin (viola, guitar), Sophie Mathieu (cello), and James Tabata (bass). After a year of regularly gigging in Austin, they went on their first tour in July of 2023.]
"Hate Yourself to the Core" is from the album "Tendencies" dropping on Feb 9, 2024. 'At its heart, it is a collection of stories that are intensely personal in detail yet universal in their representation of the queer experience'.
"Hate Yourself to the Core" is from the album "Tendencies" dropping on Feb 9, 2024. 'At its heart, it is a collection of stories that are intensely personal in detail yet universal in their representation of the queer experience'.
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://www.instagram.com/middlesattre/
https://www.facebook.com/middlesattreband
Austin-based experimental folk band Middle Sattre sees frontman Hunter Prueger confronting his internalized homophobia and shame leftover from growing up gay in the Mormon church and pivoting towards self-acceptance.
At its heart, it is a collection of stories that are intensely personal in detail yet universal in their representation of the queer experience. In “Sweet 16,” Prueger meets a friend’s dads and admits that while he thought he would feel proud, instead he is disgusted. He is overcome with guilt after piercing his ears on “Corrupted” – a practice that is forbidden for men in the church. But throughout the record, he sees a way forward. After years of suppressing his frustration, he finally allows himself to feel anger on “Seven Years Since the Fall,” and towards the end of “Imperfect Hands” he finds solace in the arms of another man.
With a background as a noise artist, Prueger has a penchant for finding inventive ways to play instruments. This narrative of frustration and reconciliation is told through the rattle of acoustic guitars draped with chains and explosions of banjo strings struck with fidget spinners. Snares and velcro get repurposed as guitar accessories, and elsewhere instruments are time-stretched and granulated into barely recognizable forms, altogether creating a sound that is textural, prismatic, at times aggressive, and often devastatingly beautiful.
Middle Sattre originated as a solo home-recording project in Salt Lake City using a cheap microphone and discarded instruments acquired from working at a middle school. Gradually, Prueger looped in collaborators from around the country, laying the groundwork for what would eventually become an eight-piece band. In early 2022, he moved to Austin, TX with S. Wallace (vocals, keyboard) and Mitch Stevens (guitar, banjo, piano). From there the band grew to include Jordan Walsh (prepared guitar, drums), Juniper Card (guitar, drums), Kai Jasmin (viola, guitar), Sophie Mathieu (cello), and James Tabata (bass). After a year of regularly gigging in Austin, they went on their first tour in July of 2023.
Lyrically, their compositions are at once both mournful and hopeful, and Prueger’s soft-spoken, almost whispery vocals have an ethereal intimacy that creates a sense of being let in on a long-guarded secret. In both intent and narrative, the band’s work is composed of vulnerable introspections on the agonies of repression and the ecstasies of slipping loose from those bonds. Sonically, that abstract of breaking free from constraint carries over into the band’s unconventional use of traditional instruments. Middle Sattre is rooted in folk traditions but is not bound by them, unshackled in both sound and story.
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