Blasphemous vocal mockeries

Dopo Dormi - Bought the Ranch
I Had An Accident Records

So I was reading Michelle Goldberg's Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in a concerted effort to become approximately five to seven percent more insufferable in political discussions. I was doing this while playing Dopo Dormi's Bought the Ranch in the background. Near the book's Christ-y, savory conclusion, Goldberg wrote: "It makes no sense to fight religious authoritarianism abroad while letting it take over at home … Our side, America's side, must be the side of freedom and Enlightenment, of liberation from stale constricting dogmas."

While reading this, the Bought the Ranch reached its own mind-fucking, maddening conclusion. And as the cassette's final track juxtaposed empyrean church organ with guttural, straight-from-Hell chants and hollers, I thought, "This! This is how to fight religious authoritarianism at home!" Sneak into your local church, make your way to the choir loft, and pound away on the organ keys while making a blasphemous vocal mockery of "Holy God, We Praise Thy Name."

Though I'm skeptical the effect will be anything on par with what San Diego's Dopo Dormi produced. Over organ or strummed guitar or what sounds like violin, there are layered tracks of animalistic, echoey, unnerving vocals, most of which are altogether indecipherable. For all of its ability to calm and mollify, the human voice, when modulated to suggest emotions like extreme anger or fear, can also be wholly disturbing—or holy-shit disturbing. After listening to the tape, I felt a tad distressed; I ordered the family not to use their voices for the remainder of the day.