The gently lapping tides of guitar and flickering piano
motifs dusted across The Dead Texan’s first fledgling
exposed the more immediate, intimate characters which
had always lay coiled in the heart of The Stars Of The
Lid. Recorded on a ASR X keyboard sampler and drawing
colors from a palette that consists of guitar, piano,
harmonica, trumpet and strings, Brian McBride's first
album similarly kindles a light in the dark undulations
and celestial choirs of his group’s signature
drone excursions, converting his organic sound sources
into accented pulses and flutters that scud mystically
between funeral tempos and steaming swirls of nocturnal
sound.
Though still slow and drifting, these pieces are less
abstract, of greater mass and weight and cover a surprising
dynamic range. Many works take as their fulcrum a gritty,
droney, detuned sound that floats on the edge of melody
and coloristic harmony in such a way that a profound
sadness is suggested, but nothing is made obvious. On
Overture (For Other Halfs), McBride wrestles
heaving sighs from a heavily reverbed guitar while a
film of processed piano ebbs and flows in the background,
buoyed by a whispering crackle of static and breathy
harmonica hum. Harboring as it does pronounced vocals
and a salty, astringent trek through acoustic space,
the slowly chugging rhythm of Our Last Moment In
Song reminds of the desert drift of Labradford.
In a doleful, gravely voice, McBride whispers ‘Pain,
it's part of the test’ against smears of guitar,
echoing bells and slightly abrasive particles of digital
debris. The piece easily marks McBride’s most
grounded song, and exhibits astute compositional work
as he selects, edits, processes or leaves alone a wide
range of sounds, resulting in an excellent, eerie and
compelling set of assemblages, cryptic pearls of electronic
and acoustic ingredients. All of this comes surging
to the fore in the albums centerpiece, The Guilt
Of Uncomplicated Thoughts, a harrowing composition
that wrings emotion in a most singular, encompassing
manner. Based on a circular pattern of groaning trumpets
and feminine fluting of electronics, the piece bristles
into dense, frictional clouds that eventually rain down
light dustings of tinkling piano. Being a work of individual
pieces, certain songs are a trifle infrequent and pale
in comparison to the vibrancy of others, however, When
The Detail Lost Its Freedom is ultimately a sweeping
majesty, rife with subtle harmonies and lucid expressions
of loss.
Max Schaefer
4/5 |
