Avant-garde catharsis with Adaline/Arilith G (she died in pallet town!!!)
Lo-fi emoviolence, power electronics, harsh noise, screamo, grindcore - if it's extreme, chances are Adaline/Arilith G has explored it in one of her 30+ projects.
A few months ago, I was sifting through various music databases looking for some emoviolence-adjacent projects when I discovered she died in pallet town!!!. Their Bandcamp descriptor immediately caught my eye: “Avant Garde Catharsis, LoFi Emoviolence.” Once I saw that their album Hiiragi was released on BSDJ, a “genre confused” label that has quickly become a trusted source of music discovery to me, I decided to give it a listen.
I know it’s something of a cop-out to describe the vocals on noise projects as “visceral” and “intense,” but the vocals really are startlingly intense - tears-welling, bile-building anguish, so distorted that they sound like they're being fed through a tin can telephone. These wails are paired with eclectic mixtures of liminal synth drones, nauseatingly bitcrushed chiptune, fuzzed out lo-fi skramz, “midwestemotypebeat”(s), power electronics, and various other experimentations. Industrial clangs are teased out of steel drum samples; an initially innocuous shimmering synth morphs into a nightmarish wall of noise. There’s a certain unreality to the album - not only does it surprise you with all of its genre swerves, but it disorients in such an uncanny way.
After Hiiragi, I dug into some more of SDIPT's older releases. I love finding out that the artist I just discovered has an extensive backlog to sift through. And it’s even better when I then learn that the musician actually has 30+ other projects I can listen to, too.
she died in pallet town!!! is Adaline/Arilith G, and her creative output is staggering. If you’re interested in any kind of extreme music, she probably has something for you - it seems like she’s dabbled in just about every heavy subgenre. SecretWeapon. is her hypnotic "pain electronics" project - 2023's How do you go on when you have lost all hope, will, and meaning? is a standout in her catalog with how well its looping drones and atonal screeches capture both the numbing boredom of depression and its piercing anguish.
In addition to that, she's released sludgy DSBM as Pestilent Princess. Recently, she began the metalcore “anti-christ-core” project Heaven’s Back Turned. As FkA TWINKS, she released a noisegrind remix of Mitski’s “Liquid Smooth” for the Br00tal Goes Pop compilation. And since moving from Ohio to Puebla, Mexico, she’s also joined the “HarshNoiseHyperGrindGoreVomitCore” band Ratas (who I now desperately want to see live after seeing videos of them performing while hammering hard drives, making out, and rolling around a floor covered in blood). And all that barely scratches the surface of her discography.
The two of us talked a little bit via Instagram DMs about her massive body of work. Below is our (lightly edited) conversation.
hello! so, when I initially reached out, I had only heard your she died in pallet town!!! catalog. I didn’t realize just how many other projects you were involved with - how many active projects do you have currently?
Currently I have 14 active projects and a few that are in the works, some with other people and some others are solo projects, in total I’d say I’ve been involved in about 36 different projects.
oh wow, that’s even more than I expected. are most of your projects solo projects? I know CuteWhenDead is a group, but I wasn’t sure about all of the others.
Most of them are solo projects, yes, but I’m always open to work with anyone. Currently the only projects that are actual bands with multiple members are CuteWhenDead, Web Murder, and I just joined a local noisecore band called Ratas.
do you consider any to be your “main” project?
My main ones would be CuteWhenDead and SDIPT, probably also Ratas now.
what are you typically using to record vocals? They remind me a little bit of an album I like that was recorded using audio from a webcam. Do you have a similar lo-fi set up?
I actually use a Blue Yeti to record vocals for everything, the lofi part comes from the VSTs and effects I use after recording, I have different vocal patches set up for each project.
I was really drawn to your bio description for she died in pallet town!!!: “avant-garde catharsis.” And the unexpected directions that album goes in are really neat - like, for “wolves,” is that a steel drum sample?
Yeah idk I think that is something that fits SDITP more than the lo-fi screamo label, even though they’re very similar concepts. some of the vocals on the songs might sound lo-fi but the music is a combination of different sounds and feelings that are put together to be just that - a cathartic experience that blooms from an experimental and unusual clusterfuck of samples and vocal nonsense.
About the “wolves” sample I honestly have no idea lol I found it on a sample pack I’ve had for almost a decade now.
the best samples truly do seem to come from random sample packs lmao I still think about this royalty free song called “Meat Sweats” that I used in a project once… it was so gnarly and I’m mad I’ll never find it again.
That’s why I keep backups of all the samples I come across in different hard drives lmao
do you find it hard to try and describe your music when you’re putting up Bandcamp listings? I feel like every musician I talk to has been like, “yeah idk I don’t agree with the genre labels that I'm listed as.”
Yes definitely, depends on the release but it does happen, especially with SDIPT stuff. Just noticed they took the Cloud Rap label off my RYM thing though lmao
which, speaking of samples! I saw that you have a lot of free drum samples and things like that listed. are you a firm advocate for DIY accessibility and things like that?
Yes 100000%, and thank you for reminding me about that lol I need to update it and add more stuff. But yes, I honestly believe artists should be free to do whatever they want to do to better their capabilities and create what they want to create, and if anyone wants to use any of my stuff for that reason I’m more than happy to let them do so.
I wanna ask you a bit about collaborative efforts in general. for one thing, you mentioned being in a local band now - were you a part of a local scene when you lived in Ohio? are there big differences in the music scene there versus in Mexico?
CuteWhenDead was a local thing when I was in Ohio, we played one show and went back to being a solo project right after lol, also played a few noise shows but that’s it.
There is a huge difference, I’ve noticed there’s a lot of harsh noise, ambient, and weird experimental punk out here, and we have like two deathcore bands. That’s the current state in my city at least, all the good stuff is at the CDMX or in northern states.
do you do a lot of collaborating online?
Not as much as I’d like to. All of the features on Hiiragi were done online, I do want to play a few shows some time soon though, just haven’t found any other similar acts in my city lol
so to circle back on the avant-garde catharsis descriptor - this is kind of a big question, and I’m sure there’s only so much you’d feel comfortable getting into, but can you tell me a little bit about what sort of emotions and frustrations fuel your music? what kind of release are you finding with the music you make?
I actually started the project as a mental health outlet during a time when things weren’t too fun and existing wasn’t really a priority anymore. I was recovering from substance abuse and addiction, also lost my job during that time and had to put an end to a lot of projects and plans I had because of it, was also homeless for a while after getting evicted and dealing with my own internal struggles and previous trauma that resurfaced during the same time period.
by that point i was already itching to start a screamo band so it was the perfect time to go for it lol, but yeah everything is basically all about that, past experiences and wounds that haven’t healed.
what else do you have coming up this year? is there anything you want to share about [your upcoming album] In Autumn’s Grief?
For SDIPT I have In Autumn’s Grief and two or three new records after that, one is something entirely different than the stuff that’s already up, for the other projects there’s also a lot of really cool stuff going on, just gotta wait to listen to it.
