Inevitably, the most exciting ones are the ones you find it hard to trace the origins of, identify what the band have been listening to or even anticipate what the next track will sound like. In the music of Anata Wa Sukari Tsukarete Shimai (often shortened, conveniently, to AWSTS) reference points fly by often enough, but they're fleeting and quickly replaced by something else that burrows through the headphones and into your ears, leaving you in a state that fluctuates between stunned bliss and numb wonder.
Headphones are optional, of course, but recommended, because this is music you need to fill your head with. The band's album has been put out by the very fine Bearsuit Records and for me it's their best release yet. Apparently the people responsible for AWSTS go by the names of Bunny and Gnomeform, which only makes me like them even more.But the names, great as they are, fade into irrelevance when the music starts up. I love the strange elusiveness of the grooves, its warped fuzziness and the way so many parts of it hang together that probably shouldn't. I love the teeth-on-edge melodic spasms of 'Drink It Up', the mellow yet troubled vibes of 'I Can Make Footprints With My Eyes' and the way 'Backyard' sludges around my brain and threatens never to end. I love, perhaps more than anything else' the skewed beauty of 'Doll', which you can hear in my Dandelion Radio show this month. And I love the rest of the twelve tracks too, but it's hard to find words for something as elusively brilliant as this.
Get the album from the Bearsuit Records bandcamp site here And bookmark the site while you're there, because they're putting out some seriously interesting stuff and you'll almost certainly want to go back.
No comments:
Post a Comment