While often pigeonholed as a "shoegaze" band, the duo of Lovesliescrushing is something entirely different. Ostensibly doing similar things: Scott Cortez's heavily treated and layered guitar noise and abstracted, mostly unintelligible female vocals from Melissa Arpin-Duimstra, LLC took these and pushed them to the furthest reaches, making little to no concessions for traditional musical style or structure. Here, a selection of pieces between 1990 and 2000 are presented, some for the first time, reworked and shaped into even more abstract forms of glorious noise.
The tracks cover a wide range of dynamic approaches and structures.In some cases, they are soft, delicate pastiches of beauty:"Seahorse" places thin, reversed guitar notes with a soft, warm bed of sustained sound to create a song that is alien, yet inviting in its style."Kittenmother" is a piece of pure ambient beauty, with a somewhat melancholy, mournful quality to it."Winglike" takes this even further, with Arpin-Duimstra's distant voice and echoed guitar over a dense hum giving everything a very sad feel.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are a significant number of songs here that are all about the orgasmic ecstasy of over-driven guitar noise and feedback."Spidery Velvet," though melodically a restrained piece is presented with an accompaniment of maxed out guitar feedback from Cortez to the point of pure distortion:the 4 track it was recorded on couldn’t even come close to keeping up with the volume."Elephai" is similar, meshing delicate lullaby vocals with massive guitar noise that becomes the core of the song.
"Feathermouth" even drops the focus on melody, immediately launching into a torrent of feedback and effects that is undeniably harsh, but somehow manages to retain a hint of musicality, which becomesmagnified by its slow sonic decay as the song ends, ripping away the raw sounds slowly.The closing "Goldenfur" takes the best of both worlds, opening with the delicate, shimmering guitar textures and breathy female vocals, slowly building into heavier and denser layers before reaching a climax of roaring guitar noise that retreats, leaving only the remnants of feedback to end the album.
One of the most striking aspects of these recordings iis how they foretold the sound of many current and prolific artists.During the harshest moments of over-driven feedback and squeal, I instantly was reminded of some of Jesu and Nadja's best moments: the simple love and indulgence of noise, but harboring a melodic sense that keeps it within the loosest sense of form and structure.Following the deconstructed sounds released on CRWTH earlier this year, this makes for the perfect compliment in its physical and emotional content.
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