There was a time about a decade ago when there was a sense of foreboding in a lot of the music of the underground. Tricky used the name given to this phenomena for one of his albums of the era – Pre-Millenial Tension. I was somewhat a fan of the movement at the time, and was a little disappointed when the Y2K bug failed to eventuate, armageddon remained in its future nest and everything, even the underground, followed the r’n'b leaders into an extended state of hedonism. Which is why I’ve been a fan of Kate Carr’s since first hearing her free netlabel releases a few years ago. She puts darkness back where it belongs and a sense of something creeping just around the corner is ever present in her work.
First Day Back, her first full-length album, sees her branching into more traditionally musical terrain than she’s explored previously. There’s no danger of falling into the mainstream though! Most of the tracks sound as if they are constructed from carefully selected samples, with acoustic guitar textures prevalent, as opposed to her normal blend of various field recordings. Starting with a track titled ‘Guitar Endings’ gives a fairly good indication of what is going on. With that title it could possibly be a collection of the final chords of a number of tracks, strung together without discernible rhythm, using repetition, dark reverb, extreme time stretching and pitch shifting. ‘Takeaway Sichuan For One’ adds a vague semblance of rhythm, only so that it can then undermine rhythmic expectations as it progresses. By the time of ‘Monday Night, Far From Over’ halfway into the album, the cutting and splicing of guitar figures is so rapid and fractured that what has, up until now, merely given a sense of unease, now becomes genuinely threatening, without ever really raising much above a whisper.
While there are 13 tracks on the album, it very much works as a suite, a single movement of sound, rising and falling in fervour, but with an ever present menace and the same few familiar timbres – acoustic guitars, the odd piano notes, reverb tails – explored consistently throughout. Snatches of what could almost be classic, mellow rock, almost break through here and there, only to be sent chasing their own tails as new ambiences jostle for position. By the time of ‘Xen’ nearing the end of the album, the sound approaches pure drone, but with textural shifts halting any sense of the work becoming background.
What is most striking to me about the album is the ever present sense of dread. On a purely aesthetic level, it could almost be a critique of the vacuous edge of new (and old) western folk. Perhaps it is a critique of the culture that has left self-criticism behind in search of escapism. The earlier reference to Tricky applies in terms of sound as well – I could imagine his deep drawl conversing with itself over the stumbling almost-rhythms. I also get a sense that I’ve not yet completely pinpointed exactly what Carr is doing in First Day Back, but the sound is so transfixing and hypnotic that I am consistently sucked in to deeper emotional attachments to it.
Adrian Elmer
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