bvdub & Inquiri - Destroyesterday

A Closer Listen

Through his various aliases and outputs, Brock van Wey (aka bvdub) has established a signature sound that is both generous and elusive. He is best known for his ability to create space over time, meticulously layering sound through craftmanship. His unique method conveys timespace and is impossible to forget once experienced. Each song slowly grows into a journey through understanding, witnessing, reflecting, and coming to terms with different facets of “being in the world.”

Destroyesterday is a deep, emotionally dense and musically complex sequence of compositions in which Brock van Wey conveys into sounds the lyrics written by Lacey Harris (aka Inquiri),who also servess as vocalist. As the liner notes reveal, this album is the joint effort of the artists to survive “destruction” as a universal metaphor but also as a relational dynamic on a more personal level. Harris’ own work as an LA based DJ and producer explores all the colours of the electronic sound spectrum with a focus on ambient-bass, dub and electronic shoegaze, so the pairing with bvdub couldn’t be more appropriate.

In tracks like the opener  “All the Weight  of the World” or “Please Let Go and Let Me Hold You”, the voice, like a gradual lament, calls for the listeners to let go, to stay true to what they love, who they truly are. Harris’s vocals are beautifully embraced by van Wey’s masterful sound washes and waves, abstract melodies and interludes. 

This album is perhaps a quite important undertaking for bvdub as we witness an orchestral layering in most of the compositions and a more lyric-oriented perspective. Most titles in the release include long sequences of string arrangements filtered through bvdub’s expansive sound like in “Alone in Crimson” or “Please Let Go and Let Me Hold You,” or the closing track Destroyesterday . Harris’s vocals are given the foreground and guide the listening experience. This is a fruit of a very intense collaboration in which the two artists worked on a deep level to understand and convey each other’s sounds, words and emotions.

Through collaboration, destruction becomes ‘yesterday’ and gives way to creation, growth and an openness towards humanity.  Destroyesterday is a testimony of a beautiful and emotionally rich collaboration with a universal meaning. (Maria Papadomanolaki)