Three stars
Matthew Collings has
become a quietly ubiquitous presence in Edinburgh's off-piste
electronische live diaspora over the last couple of years. This
latest release in the composer and sound artist's Sketches for
Albinos guise was forged and recorded during snatched moments during
time spent in Iceland, and comes on 12” vinyl with a photographic
book.
The seven tracks make
for a curiously domestic-sounding affair, with the treated guitar and
breathy, just-out-of-bed vocal of the opening 'I Have So Many Things
I've Always Wanted' seemingly pulsed along by trolls playing a toy
orchestra. The crudely cut-n'-pasted drum clatter of 'I Think We
Grew Again' comes on like a lo-fi John Barry and a frosty rather than
chilled take on The Orb's 'Little Fluffy Clouds'
Beyond the drone,
snatches of conversations dip in and out of view, A woman describes
herself opening the door and stepping into the sunshine. Toddlers
sing some far off nursery rhyme. A man shares a dream as one might
huddled round the sofa talking rubbish with friends. A woman's voice
says how she doesn't feel loved. Earlier, the same voice says how
she's “recording everything” before putting the 'phone down. It's
private stuff, as though the listener is eavesdropping in through the
rear window on aural snapshots of things normally hidden from view.
Opaque and ornate
titles hint at after-hours narratives in pitch-black retreats with
only the embers of something or someone for company. 'February With
The Wolves And Angels' squints into the middle distance, even as a
stern voice comes on like an Icelandic sat-nav. The woozily
melancholy piano of 'The Sailor in the City is Buying Up Time', the
the drum skitters of 'She Drew A Pentagon' and the acoustic fuzz of
'Piani Fingers' recalls the DIY primitivism of late This Heat bassist
Gareth Williams' post-band Flaming Tunes project. 'Submerged
Cathedrals' breathes in the extended space rock drones of Windy &
Carl or Randall Nieman's recently revived Fuxa project conjured out
from the FX box gloop, with every click and hiss preserved in glacial
bliss.
The List, March 2014
ends
Comments