Ok, so this came out a few months ago and has been doing the rounds on my MP3 player for what feels like an age and yet for some reason I kept putting off writing about it. Why? It’s hard to say, although I suspect the sedative effects of this latest album by the eternally-prolific London-based purveyors of psychedelic indie may have been a major factor in promoting my tardiness. ‘Trip’ is most definitely the operative word.
It begins with the lugubrious, plodding piano-led number ‘A Poison’, which trudges for almost seven minutes, ploughing a downbeat furrow through a weary world. It’s a bit of a downer, even when the layers of sweeping strings enter the mix. It’s by no means a bad track – far from it in fact, being rich in atmosphere and deep in mood, but it’s an odd way to start an album, completely wrong-footing the listener ahead of the spiralling, pumped-up Krautrock goes baggy ‘Survive’ that sprawls around an insistent beat for in excess of thirteen minutes. It’s a ptoper wig-out, and a groove sensation.
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After an instrumental interlude consisting of the frenetic jam of ‘Flightpath of the Righteous’ and the relentless, funk-driven workout of ‘Ame Ni Mo Mazeku’, it’s time for the main event, the time-distorting, trip-tastic epic ‘Pig in My Brain’. It swirls around and spinjs and meanders yet remains close to its core musical motif and the refrain around ‘the cycle of a washing machine’ for the full twenty-one minutes of its duration (which is probably longer than the quick cycle on my automatic).
Overall, it’s a weird trip, but ultimately, a good one.
Clinker Online
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