Quinton Barnes – Black Noise Review

Release Date: June 6, 2025

Label: Watch That Ends The Night

It doesn’t whisper. It doesn’t ask. It demands. Black Noise, the latest album from Canadian experimentalist Quinton Barnes, is a radical, immersive descent into a world where sound itself becomes protest. Recorded at Montreal’s Hotel2Tango and co-produced by Michael Cloud Duguay, this album explodes the boundary between song and statement. It is less an album and more an exorcism of grief, of history, of the noise imposed on Black life and identity. With collaborators from the Egyptian Cotton Arkestra and a foundation built on Edward Enman’s classical compositions, Barnes crafts a sonic weapon of distortion, dissonance, and defiance.

The opener, “Black Noise,” sets the mood with grinding textures, jazz skronk, and Barnes’s confrontational spoken-word cadence. “What Would Eastman Do?” references the late Julius Eastman, another experimental Black composer, and layers militant gospel organs over warped drum loops. “Art of Survival” is a brief but explosive burst of existential fury, with lyrics that punch through the fuzzed-out chaos: “I create to stay alive / I bleed to prove I’m here.” The centerpiece, “Movement 7,” is one of the most emotionally devastating moments, a poetic blend of piano, layered harmonies, and mournful clarity. It doesn’t pull at your heartstrings. It ties them in knots.

Throughout Black Noise, Barnes challenges listeners not only with content but form. Songs begin as fragile prayers and collapse into full-throated screams. “Sober for the Weekend” is a rare moment of reflection, blending a lilting mbira melody with his most vulnerable vocal delivery. “Black Orpheus,” clocking in at over nine minutes, reimagines the Greek myth with a finality that feels almost funereal. Flutes, strings, and noise swirl into an apocalyptic crescendo. “Quiet Noise,” by contrast, strips away everything to whisper across the wreckage, barely clinging to melody.

Thematically, this is Barnes at his most direct and political. He doesn’t sugarcoat. He doesn’t cater. Black Noise is about the Black experience in an anti-Black world. It is about the weaponization of silence and the refusal to be erased. The album references Afropessimist thinkers and channels grief into resistance. You don’t walk away from this record humming a hook. You walk away changed, maybe exhausted, but never untouched. It is the sound of a mind on fire, burning down every assumption you brought with you.

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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½ (4.5/5)

This isn’t background music. Black Noise is fearless, messy, powerful, and vital. It proves that Quinton Barnes is one of the most important voices in experimental hip-hop and noise art today. The only thing holding it back from a perfect score is its uncompromising density. This album doesn’t offer easy entry points, and it asks more of its audience than most records dare. But for those willing to meet it halfway, the reward is immense.

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Full Tracklist:

1. Black Noise

2. What Would Eastman Do?

3. Art of Survival

4. Black Orpheus

5. Sober For The Weekend

6. Quiet Noise

7. Movement 7

   
   

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Listen: Bandcamp

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