Jane – Coconuts (Psych-o-path)

Jane is Noah Lennox (Panda Bear) of Animal Collective fame and his friend Scott Mou, a DJ whom he met whilst working in a New York record store. Last year they released their debut Berserker on Paw Tracks, a strange stoner low fi electronic freak out that was reportedly influenced by Detroit techno but sounded like anything but. Coconuts actually precedes their debut, two tracks recorded in 2002 without overdubs and originally released on cdr, documenting the duo’s first meeting. This 23-minute track features a steady rhythmic spine, occasional murky keyboards, assorted strange sounds and Lennox’s heavily reverbed wailing vocals. It does feel like the duo are really feeling each other out, their improvised sounds coming in unexpected waves around the steady drum machine rhythm. The second track Ossie, clocking in at 25 odd minutes is much more interesting beginning with some staticy electronic experimentation and delayed turntabilisim, sounding more music concrete than Detroit techno. Interestingly the percussive elements seem to evolve from the turntable work into an ominous Ben Hur style bass drum thump and Lennox begins a wry wail in the background. Here things begin to get a little more electronic, and this is where things begin to enter that techno area they’ve been threatening. Yet it’s totally deconstructed, misused. There’s no slickness here, it almost feels inept and disinterested. Mechanical and artificial, with a heavy use of a loop pedal that picks up sounds as it accumulates, owing more to Beaches and Canyons Black Dice that Juan Atkins et al. The length is quite self indulgent, yet the duo appear keen to represent the journey more so than the destination and there are moments of genuine hypnotic oddness that really could not have occurred without the previous 19 minutes building and searching. This is particularly evident during the final ten minutes of Ossie where things really begin to cook in an off kilter kind’ve way, where you can imagine the duo afterwards turning to each other with big grins and going ‘yep, let’s do this again sometime.’