| Descrizione | Doldrums - Lesser Evil (2013) [FLAC]
Label: Souterrain Transmissions – Sou042
Format: CD, Album
Country: Germany
Released: Feb 2013
Genre: Electronic
Style: Leftfield, Synth-pop
.: Tracklist :.
Moving to Montreal from Toronto a few years ago drew Doldrums (aka Airick Woodhead) into one of the most exciting art pop scenes of the past few years, home to Grimes, tourmates Purity Ring, D'Eon, and others. His debut album Lesser Evil is in large part the product of those cities' DIY/noise scenes, where Woodhead came up throwing warehouse parties. His addictive single "Egypt", however, nods toward earlier such scenes in Brooklyn (Black Dice, Gang Gang Dance) and Baltimore (Dan Deacon): It's cacophonous and polyrhythmic, continuously falling apart and putting itself back together. Just when it appears ready to implode from hyperactivity, the song erupts into an unearthly refrain, no doubt designed to link a mass of partiers into a temporary, euphoric community.
Yet the name "Egypt" signals that Evil is primarily rooted in Woodhead's active imagination. The Doldrums project started as pure science fiction, with Woodhead picturing drugged patients in an experimental clinic who started sharing "dream maps," which lead to "this extremely fucked up, dystopic place in which everyone's wildest, darkest fantasies are being realized." We're introduced to this scenario on "Anomaly", as he asks: "Are you living out your fantasy/ Or caught in someone else’s dreams?" The track's gothic atmospheres and pulsating electronic rhythms link it to Crystal Castles, another Toronto duo similarly prone to creating soundworlds with no fixed address. "Holographic Sandcastles" takes this approach to its endpoint: Woodhead finds himself face-to-face with a fellow traveler "10 miles underground, an ocean over our heads now" amidst an echo-laden soundscape.
Evil is equally borne of Woodhead's skill at channeling the infinite possibilities of digital production and the countless distractions of online life. That "fucked up, dystopic" site of wild, dark fantasies? Some of us call it "the internet." The most talked-about pre-release story surrounding Evil has been that Woodhead compiled it on a laptop borrowed from his pal Claire Boucher, then featured that laptop's busted monitor on the album cover. It's the perfect metaphor for Woodhead's brand of jittery maximalism; it's easy to imagine him climbing inside, pushing it to its absolute limit, then posing next to the rubble when he was done. Out of this scorched earth M.O. arises Evil's most massive song, "She Is the Wave". It's less than three minutes long, but every second is packed airtight with laser stabs, spiraling synth squeals, and dark sub-bass. (And yes, there is an internal organ-rearranging "drop" a few seconds in.) Bass is one of the album's most recommendable sonic traits: for all of Woodhead's tweaked-out, non-linear layering, he pays a lot of attention to low end.
Among the sensory overload, there's a strong sense of naïve romanticism unique to a kid in his early 20s. Much will likely be made of Woodhead's androgynous vocal style, but primarily, it just sounds young, the kind of wide-eyed enthusiasm perfect for a guy who named his musical project after a fantasy world. These songs sound complex, but lyrically they're mostly about simple things that we fixate on when we're young: love, identity, escape. On the title track, the album's highlight, Woodhead grabs a fellow traveler and splits from a world of his own creation-- because it's boring, like the Doldrums in in The Phantom Tollbooth that gave his project its name. They don't know what they want to do, or where they want to go, they just want to get there quickly. As the squealing synth melody driving the song turns into a howl during its last third, Woodhead starts chanting a refrain that kids have relied upon for centuries, and which is axiomatic for Evil as a whole: "If I don't see it, it's not there."
Tracklist:
1 Intro 1:08
2 Anomaly
Vocals – Carmen ElleWritten-By – Daniel Moonking
4:24
3 She Is The Wave
Featuring – Guy DallasProducer – Tony Berg
2:59
4 Sunrise 2:02
5 Egypt 5:54
6 Holographic Sand Castles
Featuring – Sam Nacomi
4:30
7 Singularity Acid Face 1:16
8 Lesser Evil
Producer – Tony Berg
4:55
9 Golden Calf
Vocals – Grimes (4)
3:14
10 Lost In Everyone 4:39
11 Painted Black
Producer – Howard Bilerman
3:00
Layout – Jasper Baydala
Mastered By – Sebastian Cowan
Written-By, Producer – Errhead
.: Other Files :.
log+cue+m3u+cover
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