"Voiceless" by Chainlacing
Hitting somewhere between early and late Low, Chainlacing’s “Voiceless” blends slow and sparse with gritty and peaked-out electronics to create their very own “dungeon dream pop”. The songwriting duo, based in Boston and New Hampshire, is Lauren Crosser and Rick Martel. “Voiceless” was included in episode 29 of blank mood.
“Personally I’m sort of surprised people are into this song,” Lauren began. “The song was one of our first we ever wrote together and it’s essentially an experiment built around an acoustic idea I initially had a couple of years ago.”
“Voiceless” starts with acoustic guitar before a piercing, repetitive synth out of a horror movie hits with industrial-sounding beats. The horror beat drops suddenly, opening up to a safe vista, sprawling with relief.
“In terms of the lyrical content it’s probably one of the most deeply personal I’ve written, and in fact I tend to avoid ever listening to it because of that,” Lauren explained, “but what I like is that it also showcases the strange impulses both Rick and I have that draw on a lot of ethereal and gothic influences we have, but when the song is done it ultimately comes out sounding unlike any of those.”
Rick and Lauren describe their songwriting as an exercise where one sketches an idea and the other develops it further in the studio.
“Though most of our songs are sort of that kind of experiment in the sense that they often start with some guitar idea I have and take unexpected shapes with Rick’s studio tricks, that song was probably the -most- like that of any of the ones we’ve done,” said Lauren.
“Voiceless” appears on Chainlacing’s EP Attersee. Released in March 2025, Attersee is the result of Lauren and Rick’s early songwriting experiments, which she characterised as “intense”. It also sounds like it was an opportune moment for them.
“Pretty quickly, we had a shared musical aesthetic and a sound we wanted to cultivate; and around that time, a friend who was starting an indie tape label, Interluxe Distribution in the Boston area, asked if we would like to do a physical release on the label. So we put together an EP that we were quickly able to develop a concept for, and before we even released that, we were unexpectedly asked by the Rome-based record label These Hands Melt to release a full-length on vinyl.”
The two had never done these things together, but were determined to take it all on.
“Meanwhile, we were just in the process of putting together a live band, which we had no plans to do initially, but ultimately decided to try when we were asked to play shows with friends of ours,” said Lauren, “and that’s been its own complex (and joyous) struggle.”
Rick sees everything about these processes as related to how Chainlacing has developed as a songwriting duo, recording project and live band.
“All of these processes bleed together. Trying to translate our studio tricks into a live sound, as well as guard the intimacy of our songwriting as a duo, and bringing our bandmates, all of whom are highly driven and talented, into the process as well.”
Read more about Chainlacing and subscribe to their newsletter at their website or check out their music and merch on Bandcamp - there is “Voiceless” perfume oil!
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Also, you’ll discover at the Chainlacing website that the two play in other Boston-area bands: Lauren (drums) with Slow Quit and Rick (guitar) with Tysk Tysk Tysk.