BeatRoute Magazine B.C. print e-edition - June 2016

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Nonagon Infinity Layten Kramer - For the Sun Kristin Kontrol - X-Communicate Dan Lissvik - Midnight
one of the two to be dismissed outright (see
Beach House’s latest releases), or, they can be
stylistically counterposed (such as Bright Eyes’
rootsy I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning and dominantly
electronic Digital Ash in a Digital Urn).
By putting out two records so close together,
Islands does themselves, and us, a disservice
by forcing the records to read in relation to
each other, which is especially unfair given
how balanced and well-constructed both
records are, despite not markedly different.
Given the name if nothing else, Should I Remain
Here at Sea? is easily readable as a comment
on Islands career since their debut Return to
the Sea. The latter was a gloriously unpolished
record, seeping syrupy pop hooks from every
corner, very much a tie-in to Nick Diamond’s
previous band The Unicorns. The operative
assumption of SIRHAS? however, is that the
band still is, in fact, at sea. Six releases later,
Islands’ pop-rock aesthetic has been polished
to death, such that the suggestion that Islands is
the same band that produced Return ring false.
Taste is mostly synth and electronics driven,
which is the strongest contrast to SIRHAS?’s
stripped down, guitar pop style. The former
record is also more political than personal,
with nods to male privilege and police brutality.
Both records are strong in their own right, and
it feels wrong to condemn a release strategy,
but there is simply too much music in the world
to give them both the time they deserve.
• Liam Prost
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
Nonagon Infinity
ATO Records
Australia must have the best acid. The country
is home to a massive resurgence of psychedelic
rock that runs much more ragged than
its American counterpart. But while Kevin
Parker and co. in Tame Impala have ventured
further and further from their psychedelic
roots, fellow Australians King Gizzard and the
Lizard Wizard have picked up the slack with a
prolific output of mind-bending garage-rock.
Nonagon Infinity is the Melbourne septet’s seventh
album in six years and it’s the latest experiment
from a band that refuses to sit still. The album
was made to function as an unbroken loop, the end
of the final song serves as an intro to the first. It’s a
strong dose of gimmick, but KGTLW never rest on
it. Instead, the album rips from front to back with
impeccable garage-rock swagger and confidence.
Nonagon Infinity is interesting solely because
it seems so far removed from its contemporaries.
The tracks on the album blend seamlessly,
often to the point that it’s hard to tell where
one track ends and the next begins. Couple
this with the band returning to various lyrical
and melodic motifs throughout the album and
the result is a disorienting album that is utterly
captivating, but impossible to pick apart.
The album does suffer from being stuck
in fifth gear. The band roars through songs
with a blinding tempo, voraciously consuming
riffs with delirious efficiency. Rarely does the
music slow down, and the similarities between
songs mean that a listener could feasibly listen
to the album one and a half times before realising
they are back where they started.
• Jamie McNamara
Layten Kramer
For The Sun
Independent
While the term “folk music” has recently
grown incalculably to include the
cross pollination of several intermingling
styles, at its heart is still the ability of
a singer-songwriter to write and perform
compelling songs without the aid
of a symphony. Though For The Sun, the
debut LP from Canmore songwriter Layten
Kramer, certainly brings the house in
regards to production and instrumentation,
his songs remain the focal point, as
easily imagined played around a crackling
campfire as they are with the lush and
energetic treatment they’re given here.
Kicking off with an eerie synth entanglement
leading into the delicately fingerpicked
title track, Kramer brings a sense
of immediacy with his first line, “Have you
had enough of this life? Are you growing
tired of the lies?” The rhythm section
picks up a steady heartbeat, moving
quickly to the chorus, which drops amid
Beatles-like grandeur and the welcome
harmony of horns and synth lines. The
second song, “Thin White Lines”, helps
the album settle in to what becomes its
sonic signature: uptempo folk-pop with
stuttery-yet-danceable beats, augmented
by synths, and the always hummable lines
of a songwriter who knows that having
people listen to your words is contingent
on connecting to your melody.
For The Sun only touches on its folk
elements, certainly on the cantina melancholia
of “Shadows”, and on the closer
“Time Is Here To Stay.” “Gold and The
Sea” is a standout, with dramatic builds, a
soaring, harmonized chorus, and a guitar
break that understands that a single note
played in desperation and conviction adds
a lot more than a hundred empty tones.
• Mike Dunn
Kristin Kontrol
X-Communicate
Sub Pop
There comes a time in many bands lives when
the lead singer strikes out on their own. It’s a
huge risk, but it can pay off a lå Beyoncé or flop
like Debbie Harry’s Koo Koo (1981). Now, it’s the
Dum Dum Girls’ Kristin “Dee Dee” Welchez’s
turn. X-Communicate provides its listener
a retro dance party, mixed in with enough
torch songs to really let everything sink in.
If the Dum Dum Girls referenced ‘60s
girl groups, then for her first solo soiree,
Welchez has time travelled into the future
with a pit stop in the ‘80s.The polished synth
line of standout track “X-Communicate” is
reminiscent of new wave acts like Blondie,
but with a modernity that distinguishes
Welchez from being a kitschy ‘80s revivalist.
The song “White Street” is a stream of
consciousness narrative describing heading
out to a party with the heart ache of
Robyn alone on the dance floor: “If you catch
my eye I just might take you up tonight.”
Overall, Kristin Kontrol has created
a solid first album that asserts her
risk in going solo was worth it.
• Trent Warner
Dan Lissvik
Midnight
Smalltown Supersound
As one half of influential Swedish duo Studio,
Dan Lissvik was responsible for bringing
Balearic brilliance to the often bleak Gothenburg.
Since Studio’s dissolution, Lissvik has
worked as producer for artists like Montreal’s
Young Galaxy, while also working on
solo works for the first time in his career.
June 2016 REVIEWS
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