The suffering and torment we experience in our minds can feel unbearable unless channeled through more sustainable outlets. Perhaps the healthiest expression of such pain is through art. Kill Ebola and Biv rip into therapeutic musical processes in their shared album, Starving Noise.
The entire album is a macabre soundscape. Regardless of the what the title and duo suggest, it’s also much more than just nine tracks of barbarian screeching. Perhaps Starving Noise is the message we’ve been unknowingly hungry for all along; The hard truth about humanity, depression, fate, and choice.
Kill Ebola is a visually descriptive lyricist. While probably not the music one would turn on around their Grandma, his pictorial annihilations play like a movie. He graphically describes intense sexual encounters, gory bloodbaths, and inner turmoil (listen to “Chemical Protein” with your eyes closed for video-game like imagery). We don’t know a whole lot about Kill Ebola, his musical influences, or what has led him down a road of grim and gruesome schemas. However, his hurt is vividly apparent. He drags his verse in “Pest Control” like a limp body;
“You gon’ learn quick I’m arrogant and careless.”
Biv is another shadowy artist experimenting within intensely aggressive rap sub-genres. In this particular project. His voice holds weight; the syrupy, demonic incantations complement Kill Ebola’s sharper, more poignant attacks. As both vocalist and producer, Biv has been consistently putting out music for over two years. His stance in Starving Noise is summed up in “Slut Centipede” (produced by Pulse and Kill Ebola): “Self-centered sailors sink like a stone, airplane mode zone in my home all alone, better on my own bitch.”
Starving Noise’s introductory song, “Dong Fang,” comes in pounding at the door before knocking it down. Also produced by Pulse and Kill Ebola, it constructs the loud stage that they will stand on and tear down throughout the album. Sacrificial and self-mutilating actions, which can also be viewed as occult references, decorate the songs throughout but are not the main focus. Although songs like “Melt” and “Bipolar Bear“ (prod. Biv) distinctly lay out disturbing scenarios, the underlying emotion is rage and frustration rather than destruction for the sake of aesthetic.
“Poison”, Starving Noise’s fourth song, was released a year ago with little indication that it would be part of a greater album. It’s a more open and vulnerable song, with Kill Ebola touching on depression and dark thoughts like “nobody miss me, my mind is empty, someone come end me.” Biv jumps on the track to remind us that worth can only come from the self, not from validation by others: “They ain’t give a fuck about me, they bluffed up lie though they teeth.”
Starving Noise infests, penetrates, and slashes all ears it touches. The production makes paranoia creep like static flashing across an old TV, crawling through with murk and mystery like the Grudge herself. Clangs, scrapes, and warbles ring as if skeletons were dancing through an old, cobwebbed studio. Often Biv and Kill Ebola sound like they’re yelling from behind a thick, digital fog. Vocal clarity comes and goes depending on delivery and level of passion. Their style is like patchwork; words are strung together by brute force rather than poetic flow.
Hear Kill Ebola and Biv’s distorted vocals individually, then listen to their raucous-inducing, synchronic compatibility in Starving Noise below.