|
 Inward
Eyes
By
Josh Potter
Dan
Deacon
Bromst
(Carpark)
Near the end of Kill Your Idols, a documentary following
the legacy of the No Wave movement of the late ’70s, one commentator
jokes that the next step for truly progressive music will
have to be a sort of yes wave. While there’s nothing
to suggest that Dan Deacon is actually operating under these
pretenses, Bromst may make the strongest case that
such times are upon us. Owing to his roots in electro-acoustic
and computer music, Deacon operates with a postexperimental
imperative to utilize oddity for deliberate, positive returns:
namely, to make you shake your skin off. With giddy, uptempo
hooks, Reichian xylophone figures courtesy of So Percussion,
chipmunk vocals, chanting reminiscent of Balinese Kecak, and
absolutely manic drumming, Bromst nods more to Talking
Heads and Kraftwerk than Deacon’s early influences in 20th
century art music. Unhinged yet always consonant, Bromst
gives Animal Collective’s latest a run for supremacy in the
weird world of ecstatic music.
 Tobacco
Fucked
Up Friends (Anticon)
Remember the scene in The Dark Knight when Batman knocks
the Joker in the head before interrogating him, and the Joker
warns that such tactics only make the rest of the process
fuzzy and painless? It’s in this post-clout delirium, full
of woozy dreams and “Hairy Candy,” that the Black Moth Super
Rainbow frontman wages his boom-bap solo project. More bap
than boom, these instrumentals (with an occasional lyrical
return to Tobacco’s trusty vocoder) take BMSR’s feverish psychedelia
to new levels of violence—the kind that makes you wonder if
you’ve been harboring masochistic urges underneath your Sunday
best. Each track sounds like Air stapled to El-P, and Aesop
Rock even shows up to offer glib insight into topiary apes
(or something). Tie this one around your neck and let the
synthesizers have their way with your synapses.
—J.P.
The
Flaming Lips
 Christmas
on Mars (Warner Bros.)
As perfectly unlikely as it was that the Flaming Lips would
shoot a sci-fi Christmas flick and record its score to begin
with, the fact that this review arrives after the holidays
should be moot. As anyone who caught the long-awaited film
can attest (and as Lips fans should have expected), the Christmas
theme was nebulous from the start. Without spoiling anything
for anyone, the silent Martian Wayne Coyne essentially saves
a human outpost by allowing himself to be paraded around as
St. Nick. Befitting the self-conscious B movie, the band put
together a self-consciously campy soundtrack with all the
timpani and choir swells you could hope for. Abstract in a
manner the band hadn’t yet attempted, this one could be their
sort of “Atom Heart Mother” suite. Spurning all rock instrumentation,
the album functions (onscreen and off) much like “Also Sprach
Zarathustra.” Thus, it’s not likely you’ll see any of this
stuff performed in mascot suits, drenched in fake blood, accompanied
by strippers anytime soon.
—J.P.
Pit
Er Pat
High
Time (Thrill Jockey)
 It’s
a wonder that, with the Internet and all, we still talk about
there being six degrees of separation between cultural touchstones.
All it takes is a click or two to discover Chicago group Pit
Er Pat in the sort of Web nebulae that encompasses bands like
Tortoise, the Sea and Cake, and Icy Demons. Like the aforementioned,
Pit Er Pat spin groove-based music that makes a foggy mind
less so. Theirs is a sort of low(er)-fi dub that relies less
on studio trickery and reggae tropes than patient lamentation
and analog penitence. High Time is a few months old, but its
brittle grooves, supplemented by modest guitar riffs, bells,
gongs, and an abbreviated horn section, make for perfect hibernal
listening. Without the sort of spatial pocket such music usually
creates, the effect is more escapist than it is introspective.
Don’t worry; there’ll be plenty of sunshine to bask in a couple
months down the road.
—J.P.
|
Site
Search 
