Kathryn Mohr – Waiting Room (Flenser, 2025)
Kathryn Mohr – Waiting Room (Flenser, 2025)
In the sparse, often bewildering landscape of contemporary experimental music, an album occasionally arrives that doesn't just demand attention, but utterly consumes it. Laura Mohr’s new offering, Waiting Room, released on January 24th via The Flenser, is precisely such a record. For fans of challenging, deeply introspective, and sonically adventurous work, this album, promises a compelling journey into the heart of isolation and introspection.
"Waiting Room" is a product of its extraordinary genesis. Written and self-recorded over a month in an abandoned fish factory in eastern Iceland, Mohr’s surroundings are as integral to the album’s fabric as the notes themselves. One imagines the creaking industrial shell, the desolate shores, and the overwhelming silence that must have pressed in on her as she crafted these pieces in a windowless concrete room, illuminated only by a string of multi-coloured lights. This deeply immersive process, interspersed with solitary wanders and field recordings, has undoubtedly lent the album a distinct, almost tangible sense of place.
What emerges from these solitary hours is a collection of songs that are both viscerally disturbing and profoundly poetic. Mohr's inspiration, we are told, ranges from the grotesque (limb amputation by a faulty elevator, a concept eerily mirrored by the track "Elevator") to the labyrinthine and often misguided tortures of love and fear. This duality is deftly woven into the lyrical tapestry, which is as non-linear and dreamlike as the memories and surroundings that gave birth to them.
The titular ‘waiting room’ is more than just a physical space; it’s a state of being, a fertile ground for the "worm-like emotions and memories" that surface when distractions are absent. The album's closing track, "Waiting Room" itself, clocking in at a substantial 06:26, suggests a deep dive into this core theme, allowing ample space for these "worm-like emotions" to unfurl. Mohr’s experience in the derelict factory, a space caught between decay and repurposing, serves as a potent metaphor for her own internal landscape. Her grappling with abandoned ideas of home, love, affection, and meaning, dissolved by traumatic memories of violence, forms the thematic core of the album. The Waiting Room is, fundamentally, an attempt to process these "nearly untouchable emotions," to rebuild a foundation for concepts like affection and passion, and to untangle them from the pervasive physical and emotional violence that so often infiltrates the human experience.
Looking at the tracklist, titles like "Diver," "Petrified," "Cornered," and "Horizonless" hint at themes of vulnerability, stasis, and perhaps a sense of being lost or trapped, all fitting within the album's isolated creation. The varied track lengths, ranging from the punchy "Rated" and "Wheel" to the more expansive "Cornered" and the aforementioned title track, suggest a dynamic flow, perhaps moving between moments of intense focus and more sprawling, atmospheric soundscapes.
For the listener, it promises to be an experience that is difficult to shake off, lingering long after the final notes fade. This is a vital and essential listen for anyone seeking music that dares to delve into the uncomfortable truths of existence. Tip!
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