I love singles from bands I’ve never heard of before that out of nowhere force me to reconsider a bunch of genres and what things should go together on the shelves. I organize loosely by genre and era which means it’s constantly changing. I had a post punk section with The Wire and The Clean then along comes Traps PS who take a sort of warped blues and manage to cram those references into this stuff. Now how am I supposed to find the thread from Blind Lemon Jefferson to The Embarrassment?
"Leaders and Greeters" starts with an alternating snare kick double time beat and a distortion echo vocal yelling between post punk guitar jabs in some kind of hybrid of blues and chunky garage. The bass takes on the melody here and it's an angular Buzzcocks ride until the guitar turns on a blended solo and jangles into the next verse. Something southwestern about them like a reverb western tumbleweed sound. Weird. "Back Station" hits that Gang of Four guitar bursts with a Cramps, John Spencer style yelp hyperactive vocal and slows down for the lyric it happened so fast with an attitude like a Dirty Beaches blown out blues.
B-Side's "Ritual Gifts" is insisting on a banging snare but the focus is on these post punk guitars they manage to twist into sounding blues. A bizarre, crazy combination of references. The tone is perfect and vocally they have layers of understated talking delivery and yelling in the background, throwing in a measure of jazz towards the end. Don’t be mistaken they absolutely know what they're doing. "Surprises" has no effects this time in the drum loop with a hundred elements. One metallic guitar note into the sunset. There's a simplicity to their stuff that I completely appreciate but even more its this blues style post punk that I'm still wrapping my head around. Great weird rhythm and Television could be informing this one. As much as they almost invented this weird hybrid they don't stick exactly to the formula either. Little things continue to change. I think the tough part is going to be figuring out who to play with or god forbid trying to explain this to someone. Luckily you can just listen yourself.
Get it from Papermade Records.
No comments:
Post a Comment