Early in his career, writer-philosopher Aldous Huxley wrote, “Perhaps it’s good for one to suffer. Can an artist do anything if he’s happy? Would he ever want to do anything? What is art, after all, but a protest against the horrible inclemency of life?” This concept of suffering for one’s art quickly became creative dogma for artists of the 20th Century, channeling pain and trauma into great works of contemporary beauty spanning the disciplines, physical and philosophical manifestations of inner turmoil and a method of publicly exorcising the demons that gnaw incessantly at the walls of consciousness and rationality.
Huxley implied that suffering can be self-wrought, that an otherwise content individual can voluntarily immerse themselves in the depths of unhappiness and discomfort in order to create something of value. If suffering then becomes a choice, a martyr’s death on a cross of one’s own making, does the art created still hold the same value or is the resulting work a false construct? When the impetus for creation is self-induced does the art lose its meaning when compared against works borne from unpremeditated sources of anguish?
For those that involuntarily endure the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, creation is not a choice, but a necessary coping mechanism that prevents complete consumption by the darkness. As an artist, Kris Esfandiari has never been one to shy away from confronting and embracing that darkness as a method of transforming trauma into meaningful expressions of healing. There is a fine line between pushing out from the dark toward the light or simply retreating deeper within the blackness, and the act of creation can be a lifesaving beacon guiding wayward souls safely back toward shore.
“Psychic Wound” is the latest single from King Woman, a project notable for combining the uncompromising brutality of metallic doom with elements of shoegaze’s disorienting beauty into a breathtaking gothic tapestry of emotion. Churning guitars over a wall of needle-sharp feedback set the stage as Esfandiari’s layered vocals build an atmosphere of unsettling serenity before exploding into horrifying screams, punching through the droning noise with the intensity of iron spikes pounded through splintering wooden beams. Rolling percussion and chiming guitar riffs build the track’s occult ritualism to soaring heights soaring taller than cathedral buttresses before tumbling down into a ruin of ancient stones eerily serene in the cold moonlight after a cathartic collapse.
Eroticism and violence combine into a blood orgy of all-consuming obsession in the striking video by Muted Windows. Bodies writhe, grasping with animal intensity in a mass of magnetic physicality, slick with sweat and dark splashes of blood. The visual symbolism plays perfectly with the lyrical expressions of the dark side of infatuation, concepts of sex and desire and violence as thoroughly entwined as the twisting limbs and faceless bodies, gorging upon their victim in voluntarily sacrifice of body and soul. White flashes of eyes gaze directly into the camera as humanity drains away, the victim becoming one with the mob as fangs sprout from gaping mouths, a fallen angel now one with the demons and taking carnal pleasure from unending exploitation.
King Woman will be touring with Boy Harsher DJ and Rituals of Mine in support of their sophomore LP, Celestial Blues, out July 30 via Relapse Records. Follow King Woman on Instagram and stream their catalog on Spotify.
