I’m young enough to have missed out on entire genres of music, so I’ll use this explanation as to why I can’ quite place Silver Tongued Sisyphus into any space I have known.
The two tracks that create the duo’s Kranky debut feel like revelations, melding a broad array of familiar sounds in with one another.
There’ a distinctly Floydian vibe on opener ‘Dambala’, particularly as the track evolves into a looped melody, filled out by throbbing Moog and synths. Sounds blush and shiver and fade into the background as the cool rhythm plays on.
The title track though is something else. Distinctly Kraut-inspired, it evolves in a very different way to become a salty edged piece of burgeoning art-rock. No-one else is making music like this. At twenty-ish minutes in length you’d anticipate it to be indulgent, but you’d be wrong. As it amps up you find yourself welded to its cauldron of analog components and rusty Germanic ambience, resplendent with trap set and cascading rumblings and sonic prowess.
Silver Tongued Sisyphus is a wickedly inviting prelude to Cloudland Canyon’ soon to come debut full-length album. For now though we can soak ourselves in what is very much the biting teeth of contemporary psych-rock.
Steve Phillips
