Photo: Bandcamp
When ex-pat musician Seth Frightening appeared on RNZ in 2012, the sub heading proclaimed he “explores the beautiful and the terrifying in equal measure”. When he returned in 2014, it was more blunt, reading, “songs about death and sex”.
After that the artist’s output dwindled, as he relocated to several different countries in the following years. In fact it’s been nine since his last full-length release, but this month saw the emergence of Fell Asleep in the Onion Weeds, an album that’s as intriguing and esoteric as ever, all the more powerful for how damaged it feels around the margins.
Sean Kelly has been releasing music as Seth Frightening since 2010, when he released The Prince and His Madness, an album recorded straight to laptop.
A touch of that madness has remained ever since, with critics reaching for terms like “neo-folk” and “avant-bard” to describe the certain off-kilter energy Kelly brings to his otherwise straightforward songs. There’s an art school edge to the compositions, which I would have guessed came from Dunedin, but Kelly was based in Wellington.
A sense of danger still lingers, in titles like ‘Necro Nights, Village Lights’. Another song features his voice sailing up a scale quite beautifully, while acoustic guitars and piano cluster around it non-idiomatically. It’s called ‘Hetero-Blud (Doom From the Womb)’.
This is a musician who could make much more accessible music if he wanted, with a strong voice and good melodic impulses. But I’m sure he’d get bored doing that. The closest we get to a pop song on this album is ‘Spitting on Crystals’, with its thick bassline and sturdy drum beat.
On his Instagram Seth Frightening apologises for the delay on Fall Asleep in the Onion Weeds, explaining he got it done in “various bedrooms and living rooms in NZ, Germany and the UK.”
The album does have a bit of that piecemeal feel, but that just adds to its ragged charm. Kelly might be warning people with his pseudonym, but these songs don’t frighten so much as pleasantly unnerve, with the odd bracing lyric or moment of discord. But I much prefer that to something predictable.
