Gut

USアンダーグラウンド・ヒップホップ名レーベルANTICONでのビートメーカーとしての活動を通じてゼロ年代以降のエレクトロニカ/クランキー・ポップ・シーンを牽引してきたWILL WIESENFELD。BATHS名義での第4作となる2026年作は、これまでの内省的なソングライティングから脱却し、タイトルの通り「内臓 (GUT)」から湧き上がる衝動をそのまま形にした作品とのこと。JOY DIVISIONに代表されるポスト・パンクの鋭利な質感や、ノイズ・ミュージックの物理的な圧力を音楽的背景に据えています。

サウンドの核となるのは、これまでの繊細なグリッチ・テクスチャーを塗りつぶすような、鈍器で殴るような重量級のビートと荒削りなノイズのレイヤー。もちろん圧倒的なメロディ・ラインと柔らかなヴォーカルはそのままに、心からではなく腹の底から出てきたというWILL WIESENFELDが奏でるシンセサイザーは時に絶望的な暗闇を描き、時に恍惚とした歓喜を爆発させます。緻密な構築美よりも「粗さ」をあえて肯定することで、人間の根源的な感情をダイレクトに叩きつけるような、BATHS史上最もソリッドで攻撃的な音像に到達しています。

With Gut, Will Wiesenfeld brings a fitting punch back to Baths music. Though the reimagined outtakes of Pop Music/False B-Sides II put the spotlight on his pristine craft, his first proper album since 2017s Romaplasm was born from his need to make music that comes from instinct -- though the way he expresses those instincts are more eloquent than mere impulses. Wiesenfeld has always had a knack for cracking electronic pops smooth veneers to make space for all-too-human confessions, and Gut is no exception. The albums immediacy heightens all of his emotional highs and lows, while his ear for detail brings his different shades of hunger -- desire, longing, need -- into sharp focus. Wiesenfelds visceral sound design can signal the subtlest moods, like the warped tones that channel the unease beneath an apparently picture-perfect relationship on "Cedar Stairwell," or the most glaring, like the need that boils over into frustration on "Eyewall"s needling live drums and guitars (which were inspired by Wiesenfelds love of noisy post-punks such as Protomartyr and A-Frames). At times, he homes in on a single mood, as on "Sea of Men"s bubbling, flexing sexuality or "Governed"s distortion-gouged self-loathing. More often, though, Gut shifts instinctively, with Wiesenfeld letting his sounds and lyrics take him wherever they want. On "Chaos," he swings between achingly lonely balladry and erotic electro-pop escapism. On "American Mythos," he connects his awkward feelings about going out with his "better half"s friends to Americas need to conquer -- and still has time to drop in pithy lines like "Butter me up/So you can roast me alive." Several of Guts finest moments manage to sound unexpected and quintessentially Baths: "Peacocking"s slippery key changes capture not just chasing after someone, but chasing after an idealized version of yourself with that person. The use of alluring fantasies that has been a hallmark of his music remains artful on this song and its antithesis, "The Sound of a Blooming Flower." As Wiesenfeld traces breaking the spell of an unrequited love from anguished daydreams to howling liberation, he delivers a mic-drop finale that makes it evident how far his music has come. Given the eight years between Romaplasm and this album, some evolution of Baths music was expected, but Gut still manages to surprise. Wiesenfeld combines the maturity and depth of his previous work with the spontaneity of a beginner, and the results are as impressive as they are expressive. ~ Heather Phares