solely in my chest is my heart a drum of water

School of Seven Bells: Alpinisms

Having listened to Secret Machines’ 2008 self-titled album made it clear that Benjamin Curtis had absconded from the band with all their atmosphere and mathematical complexity. When I realized that he had done so in favour of starting an electronic/dream pop act, I was certainly intrigued. There are only the faintest echoes of Benjamin’s Secret Machines work, the occasional vast tidal guitar piece riding through all these mountainous clouds of dream, but the result is quite engaging. The memorable opener “Iamundernodisguise” is a stunning beauty. The Deheza sisters’ vocals are mesmerizing, hazy repeated melodies reminiscent of Cocteau Twins at their best, while a sea of guitar static churns beneath. The songs on Alpinisms are all concerned with sleep and dreams, and the weight of human interaction, which is interesting in the cast of the highly electronic, artificial environment of the music. They often recall a less cluttered (albeit less passionate) My Bloody Valentine in their wall of noise techniques, although their sound is much more chiming and centered on the crisp vocals. However, the vast washes of feedback sound and the drowned and heavily distorted guitar are classic shoegazing.

The only real flaw with the album is that it is just a little too digestible. The dissonance feels contrived at times and the vocals can tend to the cloying when not sufficiently free-floating and eerie. “Iamundernodisguise” and “Wired for Light” are incredible because of their vertiginous atmosphere, but the two songs between them rely too heavily on standard dance beats and the sugar-coated melodies of the Dehezas and feel somewhat cheapened in comparison. Still, the stately grace they evoke keeps them from ever slipping beneath their pretensions. “White Elephant Coat” gorgeously composes itself around the first signature Curtis guitar part of the album as an evocation of winter’s wind and desolation, the drums on icy unsure footing, the faint sound of water in the mix, and the vocals chanted and vast. “Sempiternal/Amaranth” is the album’s crescendo, two figures of infinity aptly titling its lush eleven minutes of slowly gathering intensity and lengthy wavering electronic fade-out. The primary sensation of the album is bliss (even managing to make a swooning beauty of Vocoder on “Chain”), and it is easy to get swept up in its eddying currents of futuristic dreaminess.

****

~ by jshopa on January 19, 2009.