In many ways, this record seems inevitable. It’s as if all the right influences were gathered at once and coalesced into one fifty-minute stretch. You could compare this to alot of things, but what really makes it so incredible is the fact that it takes its influences and molds them into something very new and very memorable.
“Umbrella” starts the album off very similar to the way Radiohead started Kid A off with “Everything in Its Right Place,” slow majestic and building, but never quite peaking out. Chris Gunst tentatively sings evocatave lyrics, which are at first heavily distorted, but with each verse, the strings swell ala Bjork and his vocals become clearer in the mix.
“Anywhere Anyone” features Mia Doi Todd. The lyrics sound like snippets of other songs spliced together into a cohesive whole. The song itself is beautiful, swirling almost-trip-hop that sounds a bit like Massive Attack in a major key.
“Pillowcase” is an atmospheric instrumental which sounds a bit like Garbage-era Autechre and segues into “Fear of Corners,” which is just…incredible.
You could make comparisons to Autechre (especially in the rhythms, which never seem to settle on a downbeat) or Squarepusher, and some folks have compared it to Timbaland’s mix of “Try Again,” but it’s distinctly its own timid beast. It opens with brooding, disjointed bass drum patterns, and at two minutes, the hi-hat comes in and lets you know where the pulse is while strings remniscient of “Twin Peaks” saw away sullenly in the corner. It’s highly atmospheric and haunting, with just a hint of aggression.
Crowd noise and drums in the next room open “Suddenly is Sooner Than You Think.” Meredith Figurine sings over a feedback loop and sparse bass until the music swells and crests into a heavily treated accordian (yes…) sample that *has* to be one of the coolest things I’ve heard in a long time.
The title track is another great instrumental that starts off with what sounds like poorly grounded machinery humming. The hum finds a pitch and becomes a chord, sparse but effective bass comes in, Oval-style skips seep in around the edges, and then clean acoustic guitar samples glide the track out.
“Why I’m so Unhappy” is another mind-blower. Rachel Haden from That Dog sings what’s already a mournful song, and in the second half, her vocals are spliced and fed back through over more glitch, focusing especially on a distorted soaring two-note sample of her voice which has the same effect as the Rabbit in the Moon remix of “Precious Things.”
“Fireworks” is a Richie Hawtin-style instrumental, which although nothing special compared to the rest of the album, works well as preparation for “(This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan,” which is an honest-to-god pop song, and a great one at that.
I don’t know who Benjamin Gibbard is, but his delivery is great in an ’80’s synth-pop sort of way. The song is uptempo, sarcastic and catchy as hell…reminds me of Magnetic Fields with better production and slightly malfunctioning equipment. The rhythm completely breaks down for two measures in each chorus, but the effect actually adds tension and release rather than distracting.
“Last Songs” closes out the record with skipping acoustic guitars over a beautiful, almost ’70’s prog-rock sounding string melody and a drum loop that seems to fade in and out of the mix imperceptively.
So, yeah…bits of Autechre, Oval, Radiohead, Massive Attack, Magnetic Fields, Eno and alot of other stuff. Sounds awful when I describe it, but taken as a whole, this is one incredibly beautiful *album* that holds together as a whole without a single weak track. The approach is very similar to some of His Name Is Alive’s work. I’ve probably listened to it over sixty times in the few weeks I’ve had it, and it has yet to get old.