The
Four Quarters is one massive landscape - a fallow
field across which astringent, murky drones billow and
expand, vibrate like high-tension wires and flit through
oceans of reverb. A bleak, heavy sense of inevitability
follows around these slowly-evolving ambient excursions
like a shadow, as sharp bursts of activity and polyrhythmic
tangents attempt to carry these pieces out of their
dim, dreary disposition, but are always soon quelled
and tamed, pushed into the background by acute tones
and stirring ambiances. In fact, the attempted introduction
of dub textures and house beats comes across as an awkward
effort to sustain the otherwise brief life of these
muffled eruptions, shuffling radio codes and caustic
frequencies. The Second Quarter does find Vladislav
deconstructing his sound, what with irregular drones
and sharp digital scribbles tearing away at the seams
of a conservative breakbeat, enabling a fuzzy atonality
and warmth to creep in, but the moment is fleeting.
Indeed, these dub and house hues never fuse well with
the rather clinical arrangements and serve only as breathers
before tight, circuitous patterns once again overlap
and fold into one another, crafting an album that is
content to drift into soporific vagueness.
The Dolls, meanwhile, is a project which gathers together
Vladislav Delay along with AGF and pianist Craig Armstrong.
A simple awareness of each artists background or general
predilection serves as something of a rudimentary understanding
of what is to be found here, as this self-titled effort
essentially merges the cavernous reverb and chilly dub
pulsations of Vladislav Delay with the erratic vocal
musings and pinprick scuffling of AGF and Craig Armstrong's
supple statacco runs of piano. The production is surprisingly
pristine and the rhythms spend a disconcerting amount
of time vacillating between 4/4 and simple Schaffel
beats, fashioning a structure that is sleek, sometimes
elegant, but too often conforms to the principles of
Art Deco, becoming another conversation piece in between
nibbles at the entrees. As exhibited on Night Active,
the trio is more successful at fostering an active engagement
on the part of the listener when quivering tones, menacing
ambient gloom and Armstrong’s sullen, plodding
piano are left to pluck away at a more varied pace.
Such pieces are meticulously managed yet warm, brave
but not arrogant, and reassuring without being overly
orthodox. When the trio enable each other to discover
a sound together, rather than simply placing their individual
units or characters alongside one another as though
in some mathematical formula, they fashion a jittery,
spluttering sprawl of malefic tremors and petite explosions
which excite the senses. For the moment, however, these
occasions are too few and far between to warrant a great
many visit.
Max Schaefer
The Four Quarters 3/5 / The Dolls 3/5 |
