1.
hey radio (0.35)
2. alienface (4.52)
3. get some sleep now (5.41)
4. do the ellipse (4.57)
5. one twelve (1.12)
6. spirit colours (2.26)
7. you can be on my team (4.09)
8. we were horrified (3.49)
9. dragons (2.09)
10. something about emergency brakes (4.51)
11. dead tongues (2.18)
12. hey motherfucker (9.38)
|
As
usual, empeethrees are at the bottom, and you can peep
the front,
inside
and back
covers with the relevant links. You know, I spoil you
kids.
This all came around surprisingly hot on the heels
of 'Plastic Dancers', mainly because I'd recorded 'alienface'
early on and was eager to give it a record to go on.
This 17th long-player opens up with some unsettling
noise, the opening track being a precursor to the final
one, in a pleasingly circular way. You gotta respect
circularity. So yeah, it's based on the 'Hey Motherfucker'
chord sequence and ends with a little cut-up of four
fairly randomly selected radio voices I'd found using
some of my famously fruitful googling. It kind of tries
to open with a little uncertainty before the record
kicks off proper with the much more palatable 'alienface',
which is kind of guitar-spawned semi-illbient fucking
butter, man. Four backwards looped chords,
a tapped-out-on-string beat, and the sparing, judicious
deployment of MELODY, cards on the table one of the
sweetest things I've done. It's slightly off the beaten
space-trail but somehow anchored in the Enough Rope
cosmos...chill out to it, or bang your lady to it.
You probably can't do that, because you know Enough
Rope has first dibs on all the laydeez. Anyway, this
is the extended mix of 'alienface', and everyone on
the internet loves it. I did a poll.
After that it's headlong into tearjerking post-rock
territory with 'get some sleep now', a shimmering kind
of Mono-esque workout hinting at some kind of unquantifiable,
nebulous sadness. It's all in the rapidly-echoing background
guitar, I love it without question. Next is a script-flip
into a kind of bouncing rock thing, basslines and all,
called 'do the ellipse'. The title is an amalgamation
of two album titles; 'On The Ellipse' by Bardo Pond
and 'Do The Collapse' by Guided By Voices. I'd be a
happy man if I ever got a rock hack writing about how
Enough Rope was a spiritual cross between Bardo Pond
and GBV, I love BP for their stoned, jamming expansiveness
and GBV for their pop brevity. Anyway, 'do the ellipse'
rocks away, over a bassline I had to change cos it
sounded too like a Sonic Youth song, and spins out
on some frenetic stabbing. To give way to 'one twelve',
a creepy interlude, and then 'spirit colours' (title
taken from a t-shirt), which is a kind of old-skool
jaunty melody thing which threatens to collapse in
on itself under the weight of too much fucking about
but just about comes good in the end.
'you can be on my team' is a strange favourite of mine
and probably no-one else's, it's a kind of broken jam,
all improvised around a core melody with a kind of
gleeful disregard for sounding like I know what I'm
doing. Then 'we were horrified' itself slides in, which
is all structure, a pinging one-note half-beat and
backwards melody over the top, which builds and adds
in a sparse guitar line for the meat. Makes a companion
to 'alienface', all amateur faux-IDM nonsense. 'dragons'
is totally straight-up, an interlude played live, straight
through, one take, fuck-ups intact, no overdubs. Simple
but effective? I don't know. 'something about emergency
brakes' is one for music scholars, I'm convinced it's
not supposed to work, the melodies fight each other
and the second half shouldn't fit over the first when
it comes back, but it does. It ends on a little arpeggio
fighting itself, war on melody, kids.
The two closers, then, and 'dead tongues' brings back
the semi-Boards Of Canada feelin', patented looped-chord
action and a melancholy going-home vibe, augmented
towards the exit with a processed djembe drum beat
(my brother has a djembe so I borrowed it for this,
thanks). Cute. 'Hey Motherfucker' for dessert, then,
and it's a minimal, vibe-heavy epic, dry ice and dimmed
lights maybe, however you get your atmosphere. It's
real rare that vocals show up on an Enough Rope record,
i can just about hold a tune but lyrics are not my
game, and it feels like bad balance if you have a track
or two of vocals on an otherwise instrumental-only
joint. I sidetrack both those reservations on here
by pulling out the old Sigur Ros nonsense-lyrics trick
and burying the vox low-key into the mix, so it doesn't
scream 'YEAH I'M SINGING PEOPLE, I'M BONO!!!' at you.
The guitars are sometimes gargled, nearly all improv,
it's loose and plays out without feeling rushed, just
the ticket for ending on.
I'm happy with this record, I know recently I've been
moaning about how no-one's listening, but I just bought
a record by The Monroe Transfer and they have less
myspace friends than me, they're a proper band. So
my lack of rave notices is cool, I guess. It'd be nice
to get words of encouragement, but I'm gonna keep marching
to the beat of my own drummer. There's no other way
to do this shit and keep it real. I'm gonna keep it
here, with my no listeners, no money, no drugs, no
band, no bullshit lifestyle. I can't imagine doing
a record every two to three years and having fuckers
tell me what I should change. Not how I operate. I
digress anyway, and I'm not judging, it's just not
for me. Love and kisses, The Enough Rope Band. |
© Enough
Rope