Will Wiesenfeld has inhabited several lives as Baths over the past decade and change. From beat-based electronic music to bellicose experimental art pop and fantastical synth works, the electronic project is an outlet for Wiesenfeld to develop his own niche interests and evolving musicianship. His music pitches between earnest, puckish, and heart-rending, often within the same effervescent four minutes. On Gut, Wiesenfeld’s fourth Baths LP and first in eight years, the multi-hyphenate pivots again by filling out his sound with strident guitars, strings, and percussion. Combined with lyrics that detail the highs and lows of queer life with astonishing vulnerability, it’s among one of the most fully realized and exhilarating Baths albums to date.
Wiesenfeld refers to Gut as “stomach music,” referring to lyrics that approach a flux of raw emotions without fear or shame, a first-thought-best-thought approach that teeters between gusts of aggression and ruminative quiet. Wiesenfeld balances the back-and-forth through frank lyrics that break new ground in his music. Here, he’s openly indulging in lust, “fucking all the men in droves” amid a polyphony of buzzing background vocals on the nervy “Sea of Men”; on mid-album standout “Eden,” his voice volleys around jittery synth melodies as he spirals out with radiant lust. “I am what he’ll be drinking/I’m a spring/Cupped to his lips,” he sings, slipping into straightforward desire: “I’m the sweat/Pressed on his tits/Slip into my ellipsis.” The brasher lyrics allow him to confront sex, isolation, and self-immolation with bracing candor.
Gut brings different elements of Wiesenfeld’s usual sound to the fore. The Isaura String Quartet, a Los Angeles ensemble that appeared on 2017’s Romaplasm, bolster a number of tracks with fluttering violin, cello, and viola. A swarm of violins circle Wisenfeld’s voice on “Sea of Men,” while the crisscrossing guitar and cello on “Verity” create friction beneath vivid lyrics depicting moonlight on yellow teeth and sunbleached plastic. With heavier guitars in the mix, Wiesenfeld also brings a new muscularity to his sound. He has mentioned being inspired by acts like Protomartyr and Gilla Band, influences that can be found on the tense, stuttering riffs that chug through “Peacocking,” underscoring the song’s unabashed neediness. Thudding percussion sounds like a fitful, ruptured drumline during the centerpiece “American Mythos,” where Wiesenfeld catalogs a relationship’s failings, whether it’s lack of trust or just finding his partner’s friends annoying. “I hate us/And I hate it all,” he admits in an airy falsetto against a swell of violins at the song’s end, a forthright confession set to a taut, post-punk patchwork.
The simmering, coiled backdrops amplify Wiesenfeld’s moods, whether he’s in heat or in the midst of an anxiety attack: Gut examines the giddy, pleasure-seeking joys of queerness alongside debasement, loneliness, and desperation. “Homosexuals” delivers one of Wiesenfeld’s most honest choruses yet, turning over a sense of unease over a stop-start guitar melody. “Know that none of how I’ve loved is working,” he sings, “But I guess I’m free.” Later, on “Governed,” his whispered vocals slowly drift into frame over prismatic, stratified synths to express how it feels to live as a queer person under scrutiny, both from outside and within the community: “My genetic disparity is a prison of scenery,” he confesses before landing on a note of resignation. “I will be quiet, I will be othered,” he sings, “I will die waiting, I will die governed.”
Wiesenfeld confronts these messy, self-conscious crises in order to open a door to a more forgiving and accepting future. During the fantastic closer “Sound of a Blooming Flower,” he starts off in a more traditional ballad mode, describing the pangs of unrequited love and rooting that feeling of insignificance in his religious upbringing. “I come from anger, suppression, and festering,” he acknowledges, less a confession than an exorcism. Then he releases the pressure valve, juxtaposing the song’s rippling piano and pattering rainfall against concussive drum patterns, guitar squalls, and screamed vocals. The track distills Gut’s appeal, swinging between tranquil self-reflection and bursts of raw emotion with candid grace.
