The Danish word hygge, the German word weltschmerz and the Bantu word ilunga – what they have in common is that there isn’t an evident translation for it in English. 1: the complete absence of anything emotionally overwhelming and the presence of and pleasure from soothing things. 2: the kind of feeling experienced by someone who understands that physical reality can never satisfy the demands of the mind. 3: a person willing to forgive abuse the first time, tolerate it the second but never a third time. The first EP of the Philly shoegaze outfit Nothing is called Poshlost; a fling of the Russians at an untranslatable word, to be found back in Nikolai Gogol’s Pushkin. Poshlost’ is the Russian version of banality, with a characteristic national flavoring of metaphysics and high morality, and a peculiar conjunction of the sexual and the spiritual. The title makes sense seeing that Domenic Palermo, the front man of the band, claims to be heavily inspired by Gogol (and Dostoevsky, and he loves metaphysics and existentialism – the latter explaining the name of the outfit). An equal fun fact concerning Nothing is that it’s made up by a group of five musicians from which two played in hardcore punk groups who have been very dear to me, viz Horror Show and Cold World. With a somewhat clear direction in mind for this affair, Palermo gathered together the line-up and in a mere five months they put out this demo. The output is kind of hallucinatory and a world apart from the older heavy material. If My Bloody Valentine moved to the United States, got along with the times and lightened up a little – this would be the output, kind of. But not really. I hate doing these last punchlines where I have to convince you to listen to it, they always end up sounding cheesy. “Sticking a chainsaw into a fresh mound of dirt.”, is the description of the band by Palermo himself. Get your shoe gaze on so I can get over with this already, and enjoy.

Direct link: NOTHING – PHANTOM (320 kbps)

Direct link: NOTHING – B&E (320 kbps)

Direct link: NOTHING – LAST DAY IN BOUVILLE (320 kbps)