Torture by Wyatt Howland + Andrew Kirschner: A Noise-Fueled Assault on Your Ears
Alright, let’s get this straight—Torture isn’t for everyone. If you’re looking for some chill beats to vibe to while sipping your latte, turn back now. This 2008 noise-fest from Mistake By The Lake Tapes is a full-on sensory attack, and it doesn’t care if you survive. Wyatt Howland and Andrew Kirschner didn’t just make an album here—they weaponized sound.
The opening track, Untitled, slaps you in the face right out of the gate. No build-up, no soft intro—just raw, unfiltered chaos. It’s like someone took a broken synth, threw it into a blender, and hit puree. But weirdly enough, that’s what makes it stick. You don’t listen to this track; it happens to you. The layers of distortion pile up so thick you can practically feel them vibrating in your chest. It’s ugly, messy, and absolutely unforgettable. By the time it ends, you’re either gasping for air or hitting repeat because you need to figure out what just punched you in the soul.
Then there’s Static Vein (or whatever the hell it’s called—I lost count after track one). This one feels like being trapped inside a malfunctioning arcade machine during a power surge. The high-pitched squeals and jagged rhythms claw at your brain until you start questioning reality. And yet…there’s something hypnotic about it. Like staring into a car crash—you know you should look away, but damn if it ain’t fascinating. That’s the magic of this record: it’s brutal as hell, but it pulls you in deeper than you want to admit.
What’s wild about Torture is how unapologetically American it feels. Not the polished, Instagram-filtered version of America, but the gritty underbelly—the kind of place where things break and nobody fixes them. Released in 2008, it captures a moment when experimental electronic music was still figuring itself out, and these two dudes clearly decided to throw the rulebook in a dumpster fire.
So yeah, Torture isn’t easy listening. It’s not even hard listening—it’s impossible listening. But maybe that’s the point. In a world drowning in cookie-cutter playlists and algorithm-friendly garbage, albums like this remind us why music matters. It’s supposed to challenge you, piss you off, and leave you wondering what the hell just happened.
Final thought? Listening to this album feels like getting tased by a drunk electrician—but hey, sometimes pain is exactly what you need.
