We’re really into Connor Storrie’s industrial noise pop project

While it was his starring role in HBO’s steamy gay hockey romance that skyrocketed him to elite White Boy Of The Past Several Months status, Heated Rivalry’s Connor Storrie has proven himself to be quite the Renaissance Man (a jack-of-all-trades when he’s not jacking off onscreen to sexts from his hockey-rival-turned-secret-lover). He’s been active in the Los Angeles clowning scene—which isn’t too surprising, given his background as a competitive gymnast and Groundlings-trained improviser. And in an interview with Vulture, he mentioned offhand that he enjoys making “ear-bloody loud” noise music as a hobby. 

Some amateur sleuths found an artist on SoundCloud who makes music under the name Tzar Domynik—an alias Storrie has also used for his clown persona. One fan on the Heated Rivalry subreddit noted that the Tzar Domynik SoundCloud page previously bore Storrie’s given name, with releases dating back to 2021. One wonders if Storrie adopting a Russian pseudonym was a nod to the heritage of his bad-boy breakout role Ilya Rozanov. 

As far as the songs themselves go, Tzar Domynik’s industrial mixes are actually pretty great. Tracks like “SPIDER BAIT” and “WRESTLING EELS” clip and pummel with record-scratching, earsplitting fury ready to enrapture your local warehouse rave, recalling the heavier shades of immediately post-Soviet darkwave and dance punk. “SAD DAD” is especially ear-piercing, with layers of wind-tunneling distortion piling themselves atop a stabby bassline. “NICED” could easily be a Government Plates-era Death Grips beat. Recent release “life could be like” features some ultra-boosted bass and a warped-to-hell vocal loop, and makes Storrie’s now-archived Instagram post praising New York-based noise rock band Model/Actriz make perfect sense. 

Will we see Tzar Domynik supporting Cole Haden and friends on an upcoming tour? Probably not—Storrie’s seems pretty booked and busy with projects like Molly Gordon’s comedy film Peaked and Babygirl director Halina Reijn’s forthcoming A24 feature Please—but it’d be an incredible pairing, Storrie’s bustling work schedule permitting. Or maybe Storrie prefers to keep Tzar Domynik as it is—a hobby. One can imagine Storrie coming home from a long day on set in the enemies-to-lovers mines and relaxing with some Ableton plugins, unwinding to the tune of some Eastern Bloc-inspired electro-hardcore. 

I’d respect Storrie’s wishes if he wanted to keep his musical project separate from his acting career, but it could be cool to hear a Tzar Domynik needle drop in the second season of Heated Rivalry that’s reportedly in the works. It’d certainly be more interesting than season one’s musical accompaniment, which—aside from the occasional pull from the mid-Aughts Canadian indie pop canon—mostly sounded like a royalty-free knockoff of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s Challengers soundtrack. I guess that propulsive, synth-forward techno has become audio shorthand for longstanding homoerotic sports rivalries in film and television—but that’s a different thinkpiece.

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