Muso’s Guide Singles Club: 12 September 2011

by Michael Waters

The festival season is over. Basically. No more festivals. Clash-finder sheets and snuck-in arena beers are being slowly replaced with grimy puddles to drag your shoelaces through and an acute drop in Vitamin D to make you slowly spiral into depression, alone, in your stupid house that isn’t even a tent. It’s time to beat the Seasonal Affective Blues in the way that every 2010s net-savvy press-keen music lover does, week after week. Buy CD singles.

Gescom
‘Skull Snap’

There is a degree of uncertainty as to who and how many actually contribute to Gescom, but the definite fixtures are Rob Brown and Sean Booth (leading post-rave, patch-step, “IDM” duo, Autechre). This short EP sees the most approachable material they have put out since their earlier 4/4 two-chord techno, perhaps more so, certainly compared to 1998’s novel, format-rinsing Gescom EP, Minidisc. The tracks retain the signature squelch and unsettling alien timbres of Autechre, but they are a sight funkier and more basic. Depending on what you personally take from an Autechre listen, Skull Snap could either be boring or… bangin’.

Amoss
‘Severance’

A sparse, spacious atmosphere opens, bringing to mind Amon Tobin, before a stock drum ‘n’ bass loop takes the reigns. The abstract swells of sub and clinical stabs of synth are used sparingly and essentially free of melody, bringing a dark and formidable edge to the rhythm. Besides the dull genre-badge of a main loop, the sci-fi-esque sonic palette of this is more a kin to the likes of Chris Clark – or indeed Autechre/Gescom – distinguishing Amoss from his dubstep/DnB peers.

Okkervil River
‘Your Past Life As a Blast’

Taken from May’s album I Am Very Far – recognised for how thematically self-contained each song is – you’d expect strong lyrics, particularly with Will Sheff’s existing literary reputation, and you’d be proven right. A shortfall of the song, however, is the lyrics’ relationship to the music. The bright and lush indie-rock instrumentation is uplifting, reminiscent of Arcade Fire, but at odds with, “your throat, where it’s exposed, looks like a crime / I’ll sneak-up slow and whisper quiet”. A lack of correspondence between the music and lyrics, mood-wise, makes it slightly more difficult to appreciate each.

I Break Horses
‘Winter Beats’

A bright ascension of wet synth layers foreword what one could obnoxiously tag “chillwave” vocals – essentially the appropriation of shoegaze vocal production for non- shoegaze ends. The strength here lies in the subdued but infectious melody and the rich, almost orchestral texture developed with lines and pads of synth. This is crowded musical ground to tread, but on the face of it an instantly listenable song.

Love Inks
‘Rock On’

Speaking of reverb-laden vocals, this track takes them to an extreme, or at least so it seems in contrast with the dry crunch of the bassline that cuts through them, and the sheer absence of anything else to muddy them. Love Inks’ penchant for provocatively sparse, demo-length tracks divides opinion, but their stylistic assertiveness and the cohesion that results make them a satisfying listen, this song being no exception.

One Direction
‘What Makes You Beautiful’

An amazing parody of impotent, throwaway Bieberism. You’d hope. X-Factor runners up, One Dimension (sorry, One Direction), are five seemingly CGI twelve-year-old boys, empty sentiment spewing from their MIDI-controlled mouths. Sure, it’s not aimed at my age bracket, but a younger audience listening to and taking on board this music, en masse, will be a generation of prissy, blemishless twats. Stop it.

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