Liquid Soap – Trauma Resort: New Age Digital Hellscapes

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Welcome to Liquid Soap’s Trauma Resort. A Digital New Age Hellscape sculpted from the burning refuse of our time. Here, themes of paradise, “eastern religion”, and mindfulness collide with psychological manipulation and financial coercion on his mesmerizing second EP.

Liquid Soap is the production moniker of NYC rave entrepreneur John Barclay. Most well-known for his back-of-house contributions to NYC dance and DIY culture, co-founding Bushwick techno clubhouse Bossa Nova Civic Club, outlaw DIY venues 285 Kent and Trip House, White Label Yerba Mate Soda and the repeal of NYC’s racist Cabaret (No Dancing) Law, Barclay was also a member of DIY rave supergroup DUST, a since-retired collaboration with audio engineer Michael Sherburn of Earth Boys and visual/noise artist Greem Jellyfish. His first solo release, 2019’s ethereal Naja Warfare EP, imagined a war-torn ancient civilization. Trauma Resort is equally immersive, plunging the listener this time into the hypnosis and hysteria of the New Age Cult.

Like many of the most prolific cult-oriented catastrophes, Trauma Resort juxtaposes the white sand and lush rainforest of paradise against the relentless agony and psychological warfare of predatory western society. On the titular track, anxious cymbals and a thumping bass line brilliantly offset New Age keyboards and a barely-there vocal sample. “Agony Infinity” is a looping acidic groove that might be unsettling if it weren’t so danceable, while the aptly-titled “Serpent Sex” employs shimmering shakers and snakelike whispers to get its point across. With the help of digital flutes, dulcimers, backwards cymbals, and side-chained ocean swells, Barclay asks us to look beyond the polished veneer to a more troubling core. Housed in a captivating aural landscape, Trauma Resort is a chicken-egg quandary about the nature of escapism.