Dark Day: Hands In The Dark 12″ (Dark Entries, 2013)
August 24, 2013 at 9:07 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Dark Day: Hands In The Dark 12″
Dark Entries finishes reissuing the early Dark Day catalog on vinyl, following the reissues of the Exterminating Angel and Window LPs, with both tracks from the “Hands In The Dark” 7″ (recorded 1978/released 1979), plus the second side of the “Trapped” 12″ (recorded 1979/released 1981). “Hands In The Dark” is a stone-cold classic of the minimal-synth genre, and was compiled on Soul Jazz’s
New York Noise 3 comp a while back, plus it was covered by Chromatics on the first After Dark comp on Italians Do It Better. Pure nervous darkwave synth, with twitchy drums and chilling synths, and queasy vocals. It’s over before you know it (2:26) and you’re not sure what just happened. “Invisible Man” is slightly longer (2:52) and slower, and doesn’t feel quite as tense, but it’s still quite terrifying. Especially the slashing guitar towards the end, and the lyrics about “my other twin who left to join me, sometimes it doesn’t know whether to cry or laugh.” Side B is sort of a remix of tracks from “Exterminating Angel”; the label that released that album wanted to release a 12″ single from the album, but they chose the slowest, longest song on the album, and released it months after the album came out, so R.L. Crutchfield decided to play portions of the album backwards with effects added, and released it as the B-side. The 6 “Exterminations” are each about a minute long and just consist of backwards beats and synth rhythms. Part 5 has some warped guitar trails and is probably the most haunting movement of the 6.
The Answer Is In The Beat 
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