In the early to mid nineties, fuzzy guitars and pumping
bass lines were de rigueur. Basing their sound on the
sonic experimentations of My Bloody Valentine and, before
that, Jesus & Mary Chain, Dinosaur Jr and the Cocteau
Twins, a whole bunch of bands, most of them British,
found themselves at the heart of a hype that would,
for a few months, set Britain and, to a lesser extend
the rest of the world on fire. Slowdive, Lush, Ride,
Curve and many others became known not only for their
highly textured guitar walls, beautiful melodies and
hazy vocals, but also for their particular attitude
on stage. Nicknamed shoegazers because of a curious
tendency for most musicians to spend their time staring
at their feet while playing live, these bands disappeared
almost as quickly as they had surfaced. It is this very
same sonic angle that Mike Dykehouse introduces on the
follow up to his superb 2001 debut Dynamicobsolescence.
Although his first album was released only three years
ago, Mike Dykehouse had been making music in his bedroom
for years. Assembled by Planet Mu boss and electronic
legend Mike Paradinas,
Dynamicobsolescence
consisted of tracks recorded between 1996 and 2001.
The album was followed by a MP3 mini album, Leftovers,
containing more of Dykehouse’s excellent beats
and quirky electronica, made available through the label’s
website, while a very limited amount of CDs were given
away as a competition prize. Since then though, nothing
had filtrated out of Mike’s home studio until
this second album. And the change of direction couldn’t
be more radical. Here, Dykehouse abandons the complexity
of his electronic landscapes for compositions with a
pop sensibility. Entirely composed on his home computer,
these songs overflow with reverb guitars, sweltering
bass lines and drums, with vaporous vocals, well set
in the background, adding some melancholic touches to
the mix. Breaking these dense rock-infused textures
with a handful of purely electronic ambient interludes,
Dykhouse manages to preserve the consistency of this
album all the way through. In most part capturing the
essence of the genre, Dykehouse creates an interesting,
if slightly nostalgic, soundtrack. The album ranges
from the lazy Burden Of Life (which sounds
as an outtake from Slowdive’s Souvlaky),
Drown Inside Of Me or When You Come
to the slightly more awake first single, Chain Smoking,
or Unholy Fire and the delicate acoustic flavours
of the superb Western Lands.
Midrange comes as a complete surprise and appears
as a totally anachronic project put in context of both
the current music scene and of Mike Dykehouse’s
previous outputs. Building on the legacy of the shoegazers’
ephemeral movement, Midrange might not be to
everybody’s taste, but the quality of the songs
and the respect with which he approaches this piece
of work is more than enough to capture the imagination
of most.
3.8/5 |
