AFRICAN-AMERICAN SOUND RECORDINGS - Black Fatigues

Born as an offshoot of Cities Aviv, African-American Sound Recordings is the hauntological side of Gavin Mays, the Memphis rapper known for his lethargic cloud rap. A writing style with ethereal traits but always rooted in hip-hop, one that gives little hint of an outcome like “Black Fatigues”: geared toward sonic research and shaped almost like a studio diary, the hisses of Cities Aviv sound like a grammar of shadows and worn-out tape, as if it had come out on Enmossed or were kin to the most amorphous side of Rod Modell.

Shaped according to the tenets of essentialist work, made of sinister loops and the analogue warmth of a deteriorated medium, the record moves like a black-and-white collage of sound objects torn from their context and returned as micro-lacerations, hypnagogic delays and synthesizers with a lethargic touch. At times a kinship with The Caretaker surfaces, but instead of mnemonic collapse, what dominates here is a colder form of annihilation, icy as a ghost.

What emerges is an enveloping nostalgia, unfolding in a nocturnal key; the record proceeds through pitched-down samples, low frequencies pushed to the fore and highs nearly erased altogether, save for the continuous dust of the medium's surface noise. Even in a broad sense, the bond with Cities Aviv remains, translated into a more shadowy language, almost eerie in the Fisherian sense of the term; the exception is the closing “Fully”, a transition toward a radiant black music. And it's for this skill that Mays deserves full credit.

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26/03/2026