In the brackish territories where ambient Gothic dissolves into industrial techno’s harsh architecture, Richie Culver’s Quiet Husband finds its most compelling voice. The track I am premiering for you today, “At Your Worst,” operates at this precise intersection—a dankly atmospheric piece that reflects haunted soundscapes while maintaining the raw visceral energy that has defined this multi-disciplinary artist’s sonic explorations. Following his mesmerizing Atonal Festival appearance and the brutal Religious Equipment (2024) album—that unflinching portrait of addiction where track titles borrowed the clinical language of opiate blockers—Raging Habits 2 suggests a subtle shift. Here, Chicago house rhythms intermingle with looping ambient elements, creating tension between forward propulsion and suspended animation. I’ve had my eye and ear on Quiet Husband for a while now, seeking out the perfect piece that would appeal to all my readers, and I think that “At Your Worst” may hit that note wound. Disintegrating VHS loops, raw noise and dark distortion operate in the foreground of this piece, scratching its nails on the outer walls of the chalkboard. The track’s title itself speaks to Culver’s unflinching examination of human fragility, that moment when substitution becomes salvation—when “noise becomes a proxy for silence, and intensity replaces numbness.” Just days before his upcoming Berghain debut, Culver offers us not merely a composition but a séance, invoking ghosts of past raging habits while simultaneously exorcising them through the catharsis of sound. Not for the lighthearted, but if you’re brave enough you will enjoy.
