PURPLE TRASH - VELVET NIGHTMARES AND COLD SLEEP DIGICD

YOUTUBE ►

Genre: electro, darkwave, post-punk

This POSITIVELY surprising album contains twelve tracks immersed in a world that is self-contained and deeply sombre. Behind Purple Trash, however, lies a musician who is by no means unknown on the Swiss underground scene. It is, in fact, one of the many projects of Sergio Da Silva, better known as Bornyhake, a multi-instrumentalist and composer who has been active for over twenty-five years and who founded the band Borgne in the 1990s. Purple Trash was launched in 2020 as a solo project, moving between darkwave, gothic rock, post-punk and electronica, whilst retaining the penchant for dark and unsettling atmospheres that seems to have always characterised Da Silva’s work. “Velvet Nightmares…” takes Purple Trash even deeper into his artistic universe, revealing an utterly claustrophobic dimension even when he moves away from slower tempos to explore more electronic and rhythmic territories. The album, however, is not merely an exercise in Gothic aesthetics: alongside decidedly gloomy visions, surreal elements, alienating fantasies and personal anxieties emerge, offering a glimpse of a less uniform imagination.

“The Echoes of a Sleeping Mind”, the opening track, sets the tone for the album in under two minutes, relying essentially on a deeply melancholic guitar and vocals that almost take on the quality of a desperate lament: there is no real progression towards darkness, because we are immersed in it from the very first moment. Immediately afterwards, “Scatterbrain Cathedral” is far more explosive, featuring electric guitar, an electronic arrangement and a rhythm section that takes on a different weight: what remains unchanged, more than anything else, is Da Silva’s vocals – sorrowful and pained – which stand somewhat in contrast to the track’s greater energy. The mood remains intense, building to the almost pounding rhythm of “It’s a Funeral Pyre”, where even the tones become, at times, raw and abrasive: the album thus seems to proceed through shifts in intensity, with frequent returns to more introspective moments. This is the case with ‘I Tried to Sniff Coffee’ which, whilst immediate and underpinned by a catchy melody and a fine guitar line, remains immersed in one of the bleakest landscapes, fully in keeping with the mood that pervades the entire album.

This album proves to be a cohesive and consistent work, capable of shifting between more subdued moments and sudden, dark surges in tempo without ever losing its identity.

TRACKS: 01 The Echoes of a Sleeping Mind 02 Scatterbrain Cathedral 03 Ashes of Desire 04 I'm hacking like a broke-down Car 05 Walls without Names 06 It's a Funeral Pyre 07 I tried to sniff Coffee 08 Chains made of Gold 09 Through a Forest of Tobacco Trees 10 I was a Trash Can 11 Feathers in the Shadows 12 A Morning beyond all Worry