Forgetting is Violent

Shiroishi wrote the second suite, which comprises side B, for a family member who died of an overdose. “It’s grappling with what I imagined he would have felt leaving this earth, leaving behind kids—and now being in the sky and watching over them.” These tracks mostly feature Shiroishi solo, singing a simple wordless melody over a soft synthetic drone. But on closing track “Trying to get to heaven before they close the door,” he harmonizes with himself, arranging the melody as if for a choir. Meanwhile, Ball's guitar exhumes great clouds of static, mixing with Shiroishi’s vocal harmonies and caterwauling saxophone. Here, in miniature, is the simultaneous potency of grief and its aftershocks, the sacred and profane.