MCIAA are always generous with the music's technical elements on their liners, if only they'd go a little deeper with content for the head as well. This latest MCIAA release might be a sort of flipside to their Cosmic Light Of A New Millennium album, also on Important, this time exploring dark instead of light. If that is the record's aim, then it falls slightly short as Roberto Opalio's vocals are too beautiful for the black of nothingness.
The opening crackles of "Part One" seem to bridge the gap between light and shade, splinters of color lighting up the song's cold background. A possibly-human / possibly-horn refrain reacts with against analogue chimes to fill out this soundscape further. Roberto’s dilating dual vocals have slowly become a glorious trademark of the brothers' MCIAA sound, one of the great wordless vocal styles around.
The music on both of these lengthy pieces works well in expanding to take in smashed electrics, as well as sections of carefully interwoven analogue material. The percussion is loose and mostly formless, digital squelches of rain soaked drum beating peppering the middle ground like close-ups of exploding raindrops. The sounds here don't exactly come under the category of the generic dark genre though; they sound lost rather than sinister, too busy to be representative of a void. Rising and falling within the wide lens mix are elements that smear into each other like a hurried and blurred precipitation of colors and emotions. This great smear orbits itself, its elements too numerous to hold onto before slowing to a silent halt.
The pace of "Part Two" also begins slowly, taking its time to sink into reality. This strung-out and shaky elongated Jandek-style guitar descent slides into a thick slow motion fall. This builds into a hovering murmur of barbed acoustic guitar loops and snatches of vocal moan, a build that hovers between angelic menace and madness.
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