QOHELETH is comprised of Jeremy Hunt, Mike Strickler, and Caiden Withey. The resulting sounds of this collective are rooted in discordance: loud, obnoxious, and discomforting. Across their first three releases, this trio has focused on these central tenets: pushing the boundaries of songwriting and noise to its limits, never standing in one place for long, and doing exactly what they want.
Through their music, they are attempting to collect and assemble the experiences of a fractured world into new expressions. As Flannery O’Connor once said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.”
Their first release, God is the Warmest Place to Hide (2017), took inspiration from the tagline of John Carpenter’s The Thing: “Man is the warmest place to hide.” As Carpenter’s film explored the uncertainty of what it means to be a human overtaken by unknown forces, this record asks what happens to us when we use the uncertainty of our perceptions and understandings of God as the justification for our darker actions.
Their second record, Black Kite Broadcasts (2018), was released on Bad Cake Records, and tells the story of an intercepted radio signal from the future. Told through DJ vignettes and songs captured from bands that don’t exist yet, it hits at an event sometime in the near future where humanity in the U.S. suffers an uprising at the hands of both animal and plant life.
Album number three, Ape Dog Wars Chide the Stem Toil was issued at the end of 2018, on Philip K. Discs. It’s the world’s very first noise rock remix record, a complete reimagining of the debut album. It was deconstructed and remixed by their friend and collaborator, Whettman Chelmets. From top to bottom, it presents a new listening experience, illuminating electronic and industrial undertones within the original compositions.