The latest release on Aranos’s own label is another hour of quality from one of the most easily identifiable artists on earth. It’s no departure from his previous output, those familiar with his work won’t be surprised with any of the pieces, but the songs here further refine his methods and skills.The first half of Banished in Spattered Relish consists of shorter, more musical pieces. On many of these tracks, Aranos messes around with the listener by either confounding things musically or emotionally. On the opening track, for example, “Shooting Toadstools on Shinobazu Plain,” he mixes moods splendidly by using recordings of a woman’s voice: sometimes she is laughing and other times it sounds like she’s moaning uneasily. The effect is disconcerting. It reminds me a lot of Nurse With Wound’s recent Echo Poeme series but better. Many of the tracks shift in mood during their course, most of the time taking a turn for the more sinister. Aranos’ voice is fantastic on a song like “Inhaling Carpet,” where he sounds like a narrator for children’s audio books doing his rendition of the Giant (of Beanstalk fame). That kind of voice that in other situations would be almost ridiculous but at the time makes you duck under the covers.
The latter half of the record consists of three lengthy pieces. “Interviews with the Almighty Yayu” is a soft, shimmering drone with little pops and glitches every once in a while which appear to be happy accidents from the equipment used. This fades into “Worldliness Pales Hereabouts,” where Aranos sings over a sharp violin sound. It's something that wouldn’t normally sound out of the blue, but everything in the song pans from left to right at different times. It is like an audio version of a drunken stagger or a lilting ship. I hate the term “studio as instrument,” but here it is apt as Aranos is one of those artists that does not see the recording studio as a means of making a document but as a tool separate to documentation.
Banished in Spattered Relish is a decent album. It’s not a huge step forward for him; when I first got into his music I was expecting each release to further push the limits of song. However with each release I’ve found little evolution in terms of his songwriting even though one album could contain many different styles and musical traditions. Every time a new release lands in my lap I keep expecting a metamorphosis that is never there. In saying that, he is great at what he does and no album, including this one, ever disappoints me. I’m just never surprised.
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