Baths

Supplication offers a path.

Christianity, heteronormativity, they promise a program. Follow us, do not question, and you will be rewarded. What happens when you stray?

That’s a core question behind Baths. Will Wiesenfeld’s electronic project has asked it again and again, especially on 2013’s brilliant Obsidian. And the uncertainty has come roaring back on his newest Gut. Gut refers to Wiesenfeld’s promise to act instinctually while crafting the album, allowing impulses to direct the music. And that’s clear from the throbbing beat on “Eden” (which is about having sex with an angel) or the cheery vocals yelling “that’s that!” after Wiesenfeld asserts that “carnal is a normal mode.” Wiesenfeld thrives in juxtapositions and situations that, at first, appear to be contradictions. Gut catalogues sex both as an annihilating, freedom giving act, destroying the anxieties of the body, but also views fucking as a normal, even inane. Wiesenfeld’s exploration of queerness refuses any path, spiritually, physically, sexually. And we’re all the better for it.