Having formed in 2017, Brighton experimental / minimal rock duo Ensemble 1 finally deliver their debut studio work, the factually-titled ‘Guitar, Bass, and Drums’, which follows the equally factually-titled ‘Drums & Delay Loops – Live’, released last December.
The album contains three tracks, namely ‘Guitar, Bass, and Drums’ in two parts, and ‘GBD 1 Delay Loops’. Theirs is an unusual sound, and a strange hybrid at that’s crunchy, noisey, riffy, as well as a bit mathy, a bit noodly, a bit all over, and I’m very much reminded of That Fucking tank – which is pretty much the utmost level of compliment.
Like TFT, Ensemble 1 don’t sound like a duo, making enough racket for a full band, and also like TFT, they balance exploratory, unconventional structures and a shunning of convention, plus a raw energy, with a clear level of technical ability, and do so without sounding like muso wankers.
While the nine-and-a-half-minute ‘Guitar, Bass, and Drums 1’ is dominated primarily by a locked-in groove, its fifteen-minute counterpart, ‘Guitar, Bass, and Drums II’ is more of a slow-build that places the intricate interweaving picked notation to the fore. |It grows in intensity as the percussion and swell of noise behind it grows, and around the six-minute mark we’re at the ‘ok, stop now’ point, but of course it doesn’t stop and the muscles across the shoulders tighten as additional layers enter the mix and it’s not until nearly nine minutes in that a big, choppy riff hits and changes the direction and vibe for a time, before it gradually begins to wind down, fracture and fragment , self-deconstructing and reducing to a bubbling loop before one final frenzy or sonic mayhem in the closing couple of minutes. Here, they sound like one of the epic crescendos of the last incarnation of Swans, and the one thing that’s abundantly clear from these two pieces is that Ensemble 1 have a remarkable grasp of dynamics, as well as the power off repetition.
|
The final track, ‘GBD 1 Delay Loops’ feels more like an appendix containing the workings out than a composition in its own right. It’s twenty-two minutes of more or less the same, only with less sense of structure or organisation, and it’s gloopier, more some kind of krautrock ambient hybrid that twists and warps and wibbles as the delays, but then, just as it’s starting to grow really monotonous, the overloading, distorted riff scratched its way in and digs in to form a relentless groove, and the effect is quite hypnotic. The crescendo gradually diminishes, returning to a thrumming repetition of a simple motif.
It's rare to find an album that really doesn’t sound quite like anything else, but on the evidence of ‘Guitar, Bass, and Drums’, Ensemble 1 have found their own particular niche.
|
