HANGMAN by Dayton Swim Club | Mastering

Perpetual Doom is proud to present the debut record from Dayton Swim Club…Hangman. Broadcasting on the lower frequencies of late-night Los Angeles, Dayton Swim Club is the project of songwriter Nick Flessa, guitarist Mario Luna, and vocalist Dominique Matelson. Their debut is a swirling evocation of suburban American discontent in seven immersive tracks—a midnight drive through the hellish landscape of the present.

On Hangman, Dayton Swim Club invite you to follow them down. This is a record of “Darker Moves,” excursions into the seedier corners of what frontman Nick Flessa calls the “American Death Cult.” Paired with Matelson’s operatic vocals, Flessa offers reverb-soaked observations of a world at once futuristic and downtrodden, where the people are as empty as the strip malls. “I see you on the concrete floor, fingers in her dress,” he sings on “Pillow Talk,” over Luna’s twisted jangle pop. That song narrates a teen slasher revenge fantasy in which a cast-aside victim returns to haunt her killer. But the villain makes his own return on the follow-up song, “Night Breed,” where tolling piano and layers of atmosphere accompany a tormented confessional. These scenes are drawn from the Midwestern suburbs of Flessa’s youth and the Californian border town…  more