‘Noise Body’ is the second release from Brighton based The Creaking Chair, a band which has evolved from an alt-folk trio to the stripped down alt-psychedelia project of Andrew A.C. Cooper who recorded the majority of these tracks at home.
The E.P. contains five tracks which are quintessentially English, and uses electronics and guitars to produce a sound that has strong echoes of 1960s Pink Floyd-era Syd Barrett.
The E.P. opens with the track ‘Noise Body II’ which is a guitar and keyboard number with floaty vocals shrouded in echo – so much so that they are virtually impenetrable. I think I got something along the lines of “seal the crack with caramel, brown. This is a process of noise”, which didn’t really add to my understanding of the song which the blurb states “explores abstract fixations on sound, noise, lust, re-birth and the human condition”.
By far and away, the best track is the second one, ‘Spun’, an exercise in whimsical psychedelia if there ever was one. Again with acoustic guitar and keyboards, this track hits the target with its oblique imagery: - “What’s a magazine? The bridge or the gun?/ A hot smoking news spun and spun and spun/ Hiding in the shadows truly turns you on”.
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So far so good, but after this things tend to go downhill, with ‘Noise Body I’ being an experimental instrumental, and the last two tracks ‘End, Beginning’ and ‘Magnets’ being little better than filler.
As an entity, it doesn't hang together. However if it had been pared down to the first two tracks with ‘Spun’ as the lead then it would have made a far greater impression.
Listen to The Creaking Chair at Bandcamp
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