Ky Power Is The Pharmacy

Ky is the new "solo" project of Ky Brooks, best known as vocalist/lyricist of noise trio Lungbutter and a slew of other Montréal-based out-music projects like 8-person queerpunk band Femmaggots and experimental/improv trio Nag. Power Is The Pharmacy is an album of cerebral and visceral artpunk "mainly about grief, death, the fear of loss,losing dreams, losing youth, people, public space, ultimately oneself" _ an emotionallyelectrifying collection of songs fuelled by Ky's piercing poetry, both spoken and sung,delivering an incisive blend of socio-political observation and spiritual sadness, swirlingthrough vortices of disenchantment and re-enchantment.The seeds of Power Is The Pharmacy were planted in pre-lockdown performanceswhere Big|Brave's Mat Ball played tape loops to Ky's poems, with their intent "to figureout how to make music that involved singing in a more melodic way and use parts ofmy voice I wasn't using with Lungbutter and other noise/punk projects." Then pandemichit, along with Canadian pandemic income support, allowing for Ky's acquisition of acouple of mini-synths. Songs took on all kinds of further re-shaping in the isolation ofMontréal's intense lockdown winter 2020-21. Then devastating tragedy struck (as it hadfor so many) in spring 2021 when Lungbutter drummer and dear friend Joni Sadlerdied suddenly of a brain aneurism. Ky describes "All The Sad And Loving People" as"the most direct piece of writing I've done in response to Joni's passing" and the song'shaunting, devotional simplicity is a numinous album highlight among many.Power Is The Pharmacy careens through hissing bruitist synthscape, free/jazz sprinkles,soft-focus gauze, coldwave and ambient-to-thick sludge, all anchored by Ky's superblysly, searching, serrated lyrics and voice. The album ranges from trenchant spoken-wordtracks like "Power Is The Pharmacy (Teeth)" and "Work That Superficially Looks LikeLeisure"_which repeats the line "Suddenly! / No not suddenly! / But with a fantasticregul...