Wertham & Strom.ec & Josh Lay – St. Valentine's Day [LP]

"In 2005 I released ‘St Bartholomew’s Day’, a four artist double cassette, each act tasked with finding their own artistic expression of the French religious massacre of 1572. Finally, 20 years later, comes ‘St Valentine’s Day’: another historical lodestar of unhinged and inexplicable violence, updated to the Prohibition-era streets of Chicago.

Each artist was carefully selected with a view to intersecting their own stylistic and thematic interests with the subject matter of the release, and wanting to realise a release which harnessed the uniqueness of each while linking a shared stylistic energy. The result is this long-overdue LP of which I am incredibly proud: threads of religious penance, unapologetic bloodshed, conspiratorial intrigue and political collapse all leech from the given theme, and each act delivers a harrowing set of power electronics compositions rich in detail, compositional depth, potency and crimson"

Cipher Productions, 2025