The seriousness of a child at play – this album from the New York duo of Toby Reynolds and Craig Willingham seeks to achieve it once more. Each piece is made up of quick-moving, disjunct gestures that display a wide-ranging imagination.
Compositions favor caustic, dissonant harmonies, chaotic collages of sonic debris, and metallic oscillations, but also seek a frenzied involvement in a variety of other forms. More often than not, meandering ambient backdrops are infused with dive bombing bass swoops, the rolling energy of metallic symbol crashes, and dense, dark grooves. As on ¨Mavericks¨, a fine transition is undergone wherein the pair switch from music based primarily around synthesizer effects to a more demanding form centered around pitch and rhythm. Only when the pair begins to further develop these upbeat rhythms on latter tracks does the change become apparent. The difficulty had in pinpointing the original place of transition therefore acts as something of a testament to the strength of the duo’ character – that it may be spread over a a number of disparate styles and yet infuse each with the same sweltering energy.
On the odd occasion the group takes a break from all of these hefty, wiry sonorities and entertain more graceful, arching lines. In order for the more dim sounding palette of spectral bowed ostinati and murky drones to be easily visible, more in the way of empty space is allowed in the mix. This marks a stark contrast to the other works, which, although they did pursue a wealth of relationships, did so in such a manner that they were always realized immediately. Such pieces incurred no real development, but were simply there, upfront and clear. Oddly enough, then, these lighter, sparse pieces offer the listener more to play with, if only since a continuity is presented that allows for the feeling that events are actually taking place. These songs, full of astral percussion and beaming guitar drones sound much like galaxies forming. They are few and far between, however, leaving much of this album to strike a fairly uninviting pose.
Max Schaefer
