Ever since emerging several years ago, the whole vibe of Central Florida’s Black Wick was always a little twisted. Once Joshua Rogers stepped out from pushing the sounds of other outsiders as the mastermind behind pioneering area label Illuminated Paths, it was immediately clear that his own musical alter ego Black Wick was coming from the dark side.
His warped beat science — which stretched psychedelia into psychosis through lots of analog and manual touches that weave strange character by design — was always a head trip in itself. But pairing his music with real-life confessions of serial killers, as new album Serial Thriller U.S.A. does, is next-level fucked.
Over years of digging through archives and thrift stores, Rogers has amassed an audio library of some of America’s most infamous murderers. On these cassettes and VHS recordings, he found “rare interviews and personal tapes of confessions, of random ramblings, and often very intimate descriptions from the mouths of the killers themselves ... so, inspired, I decided to pull together the more unheard of the sessions and put together an album around them.”
Across the 12 tracks of Serial Thriller U.S.A., Black Wick weaves choice clips from these interviews into his signature web of melted sounds and creeping beats. Like a nightmarish swirl of Kafka and Dalí, this is psych-ward hip-hop that packs some of the most mental sample work since early Meat Beat Manifesto.
The guest list is a who’s who of American murderers that begins right here in Florida with a double feature of none other than Aileen Wuornos. But in keeping with his enigmatic calling card, Black Wick doesn’t explicitly list their identities. Instead, the track titles are their actual inmate numbers intended as, Rogers says, “A murder mystery of the listener’s own to solve.”
The diabolical Serial Thriller U.S.A. is available both digitally and on limited-edition cassette through Bandcamp via Orlando label Popnihil.
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His warped beat science — which stretched psychedelia into psychosis through lots of analog and manual touches that weave strange character by design — was always a head trip in itself. But pairing his music with real-life confessions of serial killers, as new album Serial Thriller U.S.A. does, is next-level fucked.
Over years of digging through archives and thrift stores, Rogers has amassed an audio library of some of America’s most infamous murderers. On these cassettes and VHS recordings, he found “rare interviews and personal tapes of confessions, of random ramblings, and often very intimate descriptions from the mouths of the killers themselves ... so, inspired, I decided to pull together the more unheard of the sessions and put together an album around them.”
Across the 12 tracks of Serial Thriller U.S.A., Black Wick weaves choice clips from these interviews into his signature web of melted sounds and creeping beats. Like a nightmarish swirl of Kafka and Dalí, this is psych-ward hip-hop that packs some of the most mental sample work since early Meat Beat Manifesto.
The guest list is a who’s who of American murderers that begins right here in Florida with a double feature of none other than Aileen Wuornos. But in keeping with his enigmatic calling card, Black Wick doesn’t explicitly list their identities. Instead, the track titles are their actual inmate numbers intended as, Rogers says, “A murder mystery of the listener’s own to solve.”
The diabolical Serial Thriller U.S.A. is available both digitally and on limited-edition cassette through Bandcamp via Orlando label Popnihil.
Subscribe to Orlando Weekly newsletters.
Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
