Piehead
Of all the Piehead releases this year, the ninth in the monthly series from Accelera Deck was the one I was most interested in hearing. Having loved some of his earlier work and then really despised his last EP, I waited for Hereafter wondering which Accelera Deck would turn up. As it turns out, I'm quite taken with most of the tunes here, and there's only one that leaves me scratching my head, wondering what the hell is supposed to be going on. For the first three tracks of the disc, the ambient drone, guitar noise Accelera Deck is in full play, and these pieces work well in creating atmosphere and momentum. Feedback and mic noise and guitar buzzing is easily coxed into a world of loops and textures that create a sometimes playful, sometimes menacing environment. "Fireflies" devoles from a pretty ambient excusrion into sputtering clicks and noise that lead into the disc's only real weakness. And for all its clicks and digital abstractions, I was even with the meandering "Wide Awake" until about the five minute mark when I threw up my hands and yelled "What is the point?" It sounds like the song just goes into algorhithmic auto-pilot and while the programming and synthesis at work might itself be interesting on a conceptual level, it's just not a fun listen. Experimentation and risk-taking like this is commendable, but artists who bank on it need to be able to recognize when it works and when it flops. After the all-out glich assault of "Wide Awake", the melody of "Immacualte" sounds almost overly-sentimental, but it's a beautiful and welcome rest from the noise. The record closes with soft, reverb-drenched chords that echo out into the ether, brining the journey of Hereafter to a purposeful and appropriate end. The disc clocks in at only 37 minutes, but the great majority of those are minutes worth exploring and embracing.
Of all the Piehead releases this year, the ninth in the monthly series from Accelera Deck was the one I was most interested in hearing. Having loved some of his earlier work and then really despised his last EP, I waited for Hereafter wondering which Accelera Deck would turn up. As it turns out, I'm quite taken with most of the tunes here, and there's only one that leaves me scratching my head, wondering what the hell is supposed to be going on. For the first three tracks of the disc, the ambient drone, guitar noise Accelera Deck is in full play, and these pieces work well in creating atmosphere and momentum. Feedback and mic noise and guitar buzzing is easily coxed into a world of loops and textures that create a sometimes playful, sometimes menacing environment. "Fireflies" devoles from a pretty ambient excusrion into sputtering clicks and noise that lead into the disc's only real weakness. And for all its clicks and digital abstractions, I was even with the meandering "Wide Awake" until about the five minute mark when I threw up my hands and yelled "What is the point?" It sounds like the song just goes into algorhithmic auto-pilot and while the programming and synthesis at work might itself be interesting on a conceptual level, it's just not a fun listen. Experimentation and risk-taking like this is commendable, but artists who bank on it need to be able to recognize when it works and when it flops. After the all-out glich assault of "Wide Awake", the melody of "Immacualte" sounds almost overly-sentimental, but it's a beautiful and welcome rest from the noise. The record closes with soft, reverb-drenched chords that echo out into the ether, brining the journey of Hereafter to a purposeful and appropriate end. The disc clocks in at only 37 minutes, but the great majority of those are minutes worth exploring and embracing. samples:
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