Rapidfire Reviews: amid the old wounds, linoleumville, Antropoceno
Posted: by The Alt Editing Staff
amid the old wounds – anticipating you.
Daniel Andreas Becker’s acoustic project amid the old wounds operates in short form. Besides splits with No Action, with You Could Be a Cop, and with Mt. Oriander, the project has only ever released three-song EPs and one-off singles (the ten earliest of these tracks collected on last year’s almost lost compilation); by comparison, amid the old wounds’ new EP anticipating you. feels like a herculean feat. Each of these four songs stretches out past three minutes (a first for the project), with closer “hanami” approaching five. They aren’t just a step forward in terms of length, though; they’re also four of the best songs amid the old wounds has released yet.
The EP format works nicely for amid the old wounds; being as sparse and low-key as these songs are, a full-length might drag. Opener “there is not, and now we know” kicks things off in uncharacteristically upbeat fashion as Becker’s double-tracked vocals croon, “now we know” over speedy strums; it’s impressive how well he’s able to turn such spare tracks into earworms. It’s easy to sing along with “there is not, and now we know,” and “blank canvas” has a sticky hook of “you are an artist / you are art.” Like “there is not, and now we know,” “blank canvas” is one of the faster songs on anticipating you. By comparison, there’s tons of space between the notes and between each lyric on “porridge as a keepsake”; “hanami” ends anticipating you. by splitting the difference, a mid-tempo jaunt that derives its pathos from Becker’s wounded vocals, easily his best performance on the EP. His voice rises and falls over his steady strumming, but he never loses control. It’s a nice show of restraint where it’d be easy to go overboard; thankfully, that’s never been amid the old wounds’ style.
Disappointing / Average/ Good / Great / Phenomenal
linoleumville – 1: a rip where a river should be
You could call linoleumville a side project, if you’d like. The Sheffield duo of Alex Blake and Ben Dodd mostly operate as two-fourths of folk rock band Since Torino, who earlier this year released their debut EP a long night down to calgary. While that band’s icy, dreary style is already fairly pared down, Blake and Dodd take things to the next level with linoleumville’s taut 30-minute LP 1: a rip where a river should be.
1: a rip where a river should be fades in slowly and carefully with “john gregory’s list” as a drone gives way to gentle strums and a sporadic, chittering beat; keyboards glide in like waves receding, and vocals come in as soft murmurs. It’s only after the song’s heartwrenching final lyric–”and Josie cut her wrists“–that the song really picks up, and even then it’s only that the keyboards swell and a fragmented spoken word monologue crackles in and out of intelligibility. The fuzzy beat that opens “circle” is, similarly, the loudest part of that song, which is otherwise a languid dirge that moves at the pace of mountain mist; “hope you do,” one of the album’s two pre-release singles, is the only track here that could be described as upbeat at all, and even that is a stretch. A slowcore take on a campfire singalong, the song’s swinging acoustic backing is filled out by ornate violins that nicely complement the surprisingly catchy vocal melody. 1: a rip where a river could be could use a couple more songs like “hope you do” to break things up a bit, but it’s an easy, rewarding listen, one that seems perfectly tailored to a rainy late spring morning.
Disappointing / Average/ Good / Great / Phenomenal
Antropoceno – Natureza Morta
The artist who began performing as sonhos tomam conta has moved on to greener pastures. Forget about the project’s mix of black metal fury and shoegaze bleariness. Enter Antropoceno, the Brazilian songwriter’s new project, which debuted its mix of post-rock and traditional Brazilian folk music with the Terra do Fogo EP in late January. With her first full-length Natureza Morta, Antropoceno notes on Bandcamp the project’s intention “to revive the traditions of Brazilian folk music, such as samba, MPB, choro and bossa nova, to contrast them with the electronic and psychedelic soundscapes that constitute our distorted modernity,” building off the goal of Terra do Fogo “to amplify indigenous voices,” with a particular focus on “agrarian reform and the demarcation and defense of indigenous lands.” The themes of Natureza Morta, as the title should suggest even for non-Portuguese speakers, revolve around environmental collapse; in Antropoceno’s telling, the incorporation of elements of samba represent a reclamation of land and heritage “against the colonial project [of] over 500 years.”
Even as Antropoceno’s project is distinct from sonhos tomam conta’s in theme and in sound, vestiges of that style remain. For one, collaborator Parannoul appears on bossa nova single “The Waves,” lending his airy vocals to the track, and Antropoceno does indulge in a few brief moments of black metal fury in the middle portion of Natureza Morta. After its dancehall-ready intro, “Debaixo de Terra” juxtaposes seething screams against its shimmery backdrop, and the title track builds itself up to a seething, eardrum-splitting climax from its austere acoustic intro; “Natureza Morta” is itself a nice summary of what the full LP has to offer, and its simultaneous employment of blast beats and Brazilian percussion is one of Natureza Morta‘s absolute best moments. Even still, it’s a world away from tracks like “35ºC de Bulbo Úmido” and “Samba do Fim do Mundo,” which completely abandon any of the shoegaze or black metal inflections of the sonhos tomam conta material in favor of more esoterica, psychedelic takes on samba. It’s a genuinely fascinating listen, one with clear precedents and reference points that nonetheless seems to stand entirely on its own. There is, to be blunt, nobody doing it like Antropoceno right now.
Disappointing / Average/ Good / Great / Phenomenal
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Zac Djamoos | @gr8whitebison
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