Sunday, October 21, 2007
the painful leg injuries
next up is disc one of three sent in by oks recordings' bill byrne, from brooklyn, ny.
the quicker are the encumbered 3" cd-r
[2007, lona]
the brooklynite husband and wife duo of bill and suzanne byrne won't stray too far from familiar ground for their release on hong kong's lona records. the biggest change that i'm noticing is how there's far less emphasis placed upon cold, textural compositions, which used to be their bread and butter. following their first release, backwards, broken and incorrectly, the noisy drone thing seemed to be an afterthought (though it really peaked with their tracks on the men in white coats compilation). in its place has been much busier experimentation. actually, i shouldn't say "in its place", because pli's still kind of implementing a cold layer of drone, but it's being buried under a multitude of off kilter instrumentation and sounds.
the strongest vibe that i get from the quick are the encumbered is a spacey one. most of the six tracks on this disc have one or two elements that just give it an alien feel. after an ice cream truck flipped over and we all got some begins with whirling, helicopterish noise, it will slowly retract from the denseness and open up for a few separate layers (some panned) of random tinkering sounds. one of those layers has a weird extraterrestrialesque warble to it. eventually, the noise will start to rise up just in time for the track to... run out of time. the broken elevator's spiral descent has a really appropriate title. this introduces something i hadn't noticed in pli's music before, spastic drum beats. this is matched up perfectly by spacey ambiance and additional sci-fi sounds. it's oddly reminiscent of naked city, sans vocal freak-outs. there's even a bit of saxophone at the end. trippy track, and probably my favorite out of the sextet. they'll follow that one up with a life by the high tension wire, and this one makes me think of lightning bolt. just a little bit. it's really in the musical progression of the main layer. it'll shift focus again to random sounds and percussion, trying to see just how many different things they can throw into one track before the bottom falls out completely. i do find myself wishing that they'd take a less is more approach with some of the tracks. i'm all for layering, but sometimes it just seems a tad excessive. it could also be the fact that i'm hard pressed to pick out key bits which are more memorable and bring about a level of replayability. i am, however, more drawn to the subtler moments like suzanne's affected cello towards the end of everything that comes in stages left in a birthday hat, during the relatively calmer final portion of that track.
the quick are the encumbered is a mini-album that's not short on ideas. that's not always for the best, though. it's not a bad disc, by any stretch of the imagination, but sometimes the jumble of sounds detracted from the more focused moments.
The Broken Elevator's Spiral Descent
the quicker are the encumbered 3" cd-r
[2007, lona]
the brooklynite husband and wife duo of bill and suzanne byrne won't stray too far from familiar ground for their release on hong kong's lona records. the biggest change that i'm noticing is how there's far less emphasis placed upon cold, textural compositions, which used to be their bread and butter. following their first release, backwards, broken and incorrectly, the noisy drone thing seemed to be an afterthought (though it really peaked with their tracks on the men in white coats compilation). in its place has been much busier experimentation. actually, i shouldn't say "in its place", because pli's still kind of implementing a cold layer of drone, but it's being buried under a multitude of off kilter instrumentation and sounds.
the strongest vibe that i get from the quick are the encumbered is a spacey one. most of the six tracks on this disc have one or two elements that just give it an alien feel. after an ice cream truck flipped over and we all got some begins with whirling, helicopterish noise, it will slowly retract from the denseness and open up for a few separate layers (some panned) of random tinkering sounds. one of those layers has a weird extraterrestrialesque warble to it. eventually, the noise will start to rise up just in time for the track to... run out of time. the broken elevator's spiral descent has a really appropriate title. this introduces something i hadn't noticed in pli's music before, spastic drum beats. this is matched up perfectly by spacey ambiance and additional sci-fi sounds. it's oddly reminiscent of naked city, sans vocal freak-outs. there's even a bit of saxophone at the end. trippy track, and probably my favorite out of the sextet. they'll follow that one up with a life by the high tension wire, and this one makes me think of lightning bolt. just a little bit. it's really in the musical progression of the main layer. it'll shift focus again to random sounds and percussion, trying to see just how many different things they can throw into one track before the bottom falls out completely. i do find myself wishing that they'd take a less is more approach with some of the tracks. i'm all for layering, but sometimes it just seems a tad excessive. it could also be the fact that i'm hard pressed to pick out key bits which are more memorable and bring about a level of replayability. i am, however, more drawn to the subtler moments like suzanne's affected cello towards the end of everything that comes in stages left in a birthday hat, during the relatively calmer final portion of that track.
the quick are the encumbered is a mini-album that's not short on ideas. that's not always for the best, though. it's not a bad disc, by any stretch of the imagination, but sometimes the jumble of sounds detracted from the more focused moments.The Broken Elevator's Spiral Descent
:: posted by avant gardening, 2:00 PM