Song of the Day: Death Index - Dream Machine

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJ’s think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on the Morning Show with John Richards, is “Dream Machine” by Death Index from their 2016 self-titled album on Deathwish Inc.

Death Index - Dream Machine (MP3)

Death Index's bleak, grinding stomp bears little semblance to frontman Carson Cox's work in Merchandise, ranging from hardcore fury to drawn-out drones. The project comprises the Florida musician and Italian lifer Marco Rapisarda, who provides instrumentation behind Cox's vocals on their self-titled debut, which was recorded and written in Italy, Germany and Florida across 2015 before finding release earlier this year. Depending on how you feel about machine gun drums and sludgy punk chords, "Dream Machine" is either the stuff of fantasies or nightmares. Cox's woozy croon is no longer a wafting stroke across glittery, gauzy guitars, but a haunting bellow, the only element of the song that sounds remotely loose compared to Rapisarda's militantly rigid instrumentation. It's two minutes of hardcore punch that never hesitates to push harder until it unexpectedly fades out into nothing. For the first few seconds after the song's end. it's an absolutely bewildering left turn, and then after the sixth second, it's clear that the song's abrupt stop is as potent of a trick as anything else on the duo's loud, distorted debut.

Death Index will be touring North American in the spring, although there's no Northwestern dates so far. and it seems Cox is prepping new music with Merchandise. Keep up with the band at their Tumblr and Bandcamp, and watch the video for the duo's "Little N' Pretty".