Black Leather Jesus — Leather Narcissus
Leather Narcissus is a new six-track album from Black Leather Jesus, the long-running US noise collective who create a searing and often dense sound with very prominent gay porn/ leather clad/ S&M themes. The project features two key/ important figures in US noise/ HNW: Richard Ramirez & Sean E. Matzus
The four-panel glossy digipak takes in grainy images of nude, lightly tattooed men in caps and helmets- some of the men are displaying erect members. Doing a reverse image search of the cover picture, we find out it’s from a 1967 short of the same name that was directed by infamous gay pornographer Avery Willard. Its plot regards a self-obsessed Leather-Boy who wanders around New York- it's a reworking of the Narcissus myth
The release takes in four studio recordings & two live tracks, with runtimes between five and fourteen minutes a piece. We open up with “Breeding Urge” which brings together very muffled gallops, ill-defined rattle ‘n’ rush, and darts of taut-if-hazed forkings. Ever so often there are very vague hints of a wavering & warbling melody- but you can’t really define it ever. This is a fine start to proceedings- setting the tone for the rest of the album- ie murky, depraved, and very sleazy.
The wonderful entitled “ Video Sex, Motorcycle Gangband” mixes a rapid blend of bounding bass line, crackling roll, and steadily oscillating forking. Around the two-minute mark, we get a sample of rasping/ impassioned male breathing, moaning, and flesh slapping- you can almost smell the stretch of heightened homoerotic arousal through the speakers. This sample dies back to be replaced with more bothersome bass purrs ‘n’ pummels- with slow-shifting/ moody sways of pitch simmer ‘n’ bay running over the top. We suddenly cut out to a muffled sample of two men getting it on- with barely heard dirt talk, hissing breath, and pleasuring sounds.
The album plays out with the just-over-fourteen-minute live track “Badajoz”. It’s built around slurred/ span out constant pummelling hammerings, steady/ thick forking rolls, and sudden crunching sears. As it progresses, it’s seemingly getting more & more aggressive and rapid in its attack. Really rising to such a baying, searing, and bashing crescendo- which could perfectly score an intense studded leather S&M session.
It must be a good few years since I’d last checked out anything new from Black Leather Jesus, and I must say Leather Narcissus sees them firing on all searing ‘n’ sleazy cylinders.