Annie Hogan returns with relentless “Scorpions”

As one of the early proponents of goth and post-rock music British composer/singer and artist Annie Hogan is an experienced hand at conjuring atmospherics and mood from the ether. So it is again on her newest album the recently released “Tongues In My Head” and the song “Scorpions” for which she has quietly dropped an intriguing video overnight.

The track treads rhythmically, relentlessly, forward with all the glistening noir and dread of a funeral procession. Soft beats pace the entire song while Hogan repetitiously sings in loops backed by a spinal melody on piano supported by cold synths, icy chimes and somnambulant reverb. It draws you in, if you allow it, like welcoming death. There’s more than a smattering of referential goth motifs and world inhabiting, as one might anticipate but there’s also an underlying poetry to the cyclical lyrics and the interplay of orchestration.

Latterly the song expands and the piano wanders into almost jazzy territory. Evoking that dark droning night music of a David Lynch’s movie albeit played on an Arabic oud. Cool and dangerous and microtonal. An implied threat not too far away giving that prickly sense of unease. Or maybe I’m overanalysing? However you hear it there’s an evocative and intoxicating air. Definitely a soundtrack to dreams or nightmares and an atmosphere that the album showcases as a whole.

Check out the video on YouTube here. It’s directed by JD Waring at Disruptive Patterns