VITIATE by SCANT

Scant presents Vitiate for Psychic Liberation. After nearly two decades of singular output in solo, collaborative, and curatorial capacities throughout the United States Scant arrives with his most pointed recorded material to date. As a stalwart of the 2000’s noise culture architecture along the eastern United States, Scant’s artistry has pressurized listening environments from gutters to theaters. As Scant, Matthew Boettke has stretched temporal capacities and initiated enveloping sonic experiences where volume is a physical meditative body. With Vitiate, through three recorded passages Scant trades the caustic frontal walls of aural stasis of his previous output for masterfully surgical digital synthesis of an utmost minimalist caliber. Of the process around cultivation of the recording, Boettke notes:

“VITIATE was recorded throughout the final days inside Apartment 202*. A reflection on cherished moments that soured, an attempt to immortalize and eradicate a core identity. Comfort betrays exclusively, familiarity breeds only weakness. What we are compelled to reach towards forever pushes back.”

Where so much of the contemporary discussion around Ambient music takes on an ecclesiastical bend, or a modal vocabulary that turns towards the hopeful, Vitiate operates in the dirge and dramatics of the deflated. Vitiate wraps you inside of it’s subtle modulations and tonal turns, but inside that reverberant embrace one sits dissociative and hollowed. This is not an album for the positive moment of Reverie, but for a reflection on inevitable stasis.

Scant is the alias of experimental musician Matt Boettke based out of New York City. He is a founding member of Thousands of Dead Gods, a record label in Brooklyn which previously operated a cassette focused record store from 2017-2022. Through his work as Scant he has produced over 30 limited edition tapes and CDs for American underground labels such as Chondritic Sound and Monorail Trespassing, while self-releasing through the Dead Gods imprint. Apart from solo recordings he has contributed to extensive collaborations with Justin Lakes (Shredded Nerve/Dead Gods), Stefan Aune (New Forces), Rodger Stella, and Nick Klein amongst others. As a curator, Boettke has been instrumental to the organization of several DIY experimental music festivals including Avant Fairfax and RVA Noise Fest in Virginia, and Summer Scum in New York.

* Infamous Brooklyn warehouse building having hosted the living quarters of some of New York City’s most notable underground musicians and non-musicians.

Label founded in 2013, originally ran with Miguel Alvariño titled Primitive Languages as a cassette and record store project in New York City. Operated solo by Nick Klein since 2019 under the working title Psychic Liberation out of the EU. PL is made possible with the distribution assistance of Fantastique INC USA, Industrial Coast UK, Tobira Records JP, Rope Editions SK, and Stellage Store RU.

psychicliberation.net