(Rough Trade)
This album contains one of the finest tracks I've heard all year, the obscurely beautiful "Stick to My Side," a languid electronic piece with layers of evocative, twisting vocals from Panda Bear, recalling the Beach Boys' "Cool, Cool Water." The beats are complemented by a chiming, persuasive rhythm that moves perfectly without calling attention to itself. Despite its mode of communication, the piece operates organically, passing forward and building in an intuitive fashion that make its seven minutes pass almost undetected. Even the touches of 1980s synth-dance are marvellously subtle; everything is subservient to the vague but addictive melody. The voices sound distant but attain a perfect intimacy. One can't help an Animal Collective comparison, but the track jumps at me, and even swings a little, in a sense I've yet to hear from AC. This is a hundred kinds of pop music ideal. Should you deem no other element of Black Noise worth your attention, you still need this song.
It may be my problem more than the album's that nothing else on it lives up to that for me. The other ten cuts are perfectly serviceable minimal techno; for whatever reason, maybe my own prejudices about and relative distance (these days) from electronic music, I can't lose myself in them. The opener, titled (on the nose) "Lay in the Shimmer," charms immediately with its inviting, airy blips and whooshes and laid-back beats. The sounds are always pleasantly enveloping. I wonder if I'd be more swayed by it all if the one song that is so breathtaking to me were not included; as it is, my expectations are whacked by the outlier.
This isn't really ambient music, nor is it techno; it demands attention but also seems to encourage slipping into subconsciousness. For anyone attuned to this style of electronic noodling, I imagine this would be a wonderful record. It's fascinating how much is happening in music whose cumulative effect is finally so slight and elegiac, more sensual than pressing. How often in any genre of music is subtlety so religiously practiced?
Perhaps because I find the album, save "Stick to My Side," rather samey, I have to protest its length. All told, it runs about seventy minutes. For music so terminally calm, and so centered upon atmosphere, that is a very long time. The individual songs almost all approach six or seven minutes, which actually makes me long for the brevity of Flying Lotus' recent LP. I recognize the utility of working on a groove at length, here and everywhere, but I suppose I just can't get inside this material enough to appreciate it for more than an hour. I personally will have to file this as a mildly interesting disc with one stunner. I'm sure your mileage will vary.
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