Coma Cinema: Posthumous Release
Mat Cothran’s digital grassroots success is astounding. He started recording music in his jaded Spartanburg, S.C. bedroom as Coma Cinema some years ago, recently relocating to Columbia. Back in his hometown, though, his recordings fall under uber-lo-fi, skating by on close to zero financial backing.
Posthumous Release, like all of Coma Cinema’s offerings (and those made under the Elvis Depressedly alias, for that matter), is dark—disturbing at times. I mean, it’s called Posthumous Release, despite the 25-year-old artist still relatively kicking in the Carolinas. (His last full-length as Coma Cinema holds the title Blue Suicide, so you know you’re dealing with a dude who doesn’t much dig authority or even hefty responsibility.) It’s morbid, for sure, and goes along neatly with past prototypes he built himself. But one thing Cothran will never be is phony, regardless of how heartbreaking and nightmare-inducing that makes his work.
Cothran lives a classic tortured artist’s life. His tweets evidence some prettyalarmingpersonalsituations and philosophies. His alter-ego Mickey—most represented in Elvis Depressedly stuff (and most notably in this disarming haunter)—echoes a mind-twisting, bleak apathy. Cothran doesn’t bury revelations from bad psychedelic trips. He hurriedly untangles the unsavory cords, sorts them by color and braids a bunch into entrancing new patterns—bottle of Old Crow in hand.
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