The Answer Is In The Beat

v/a: Fixture Records Sampler 03 (Fixture Records, 2013)

October 16, 2013 at 12:19 am | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

The Fixture Records sampler from 2011 got a lot of airplay in my car, mostly due to the brilliance of Silver Dapple’s “Slip Stitch”, which was my jam of the summer, and eventually year. Here’s their newest comp, which may or may not be available online anywhere, but I’m guessing they’ll probably send you one if you buy something from them. Maybe. Anyway, this one continues the abstract lo-fi garage-rock and dark synth-pop of the previous comp, opening with Mavo’s jangly “Totally Tired”, which riffs on VU and (obviously) The Fall. From there, it varies from poppy to vaguely funky to ethereal to dark. Freelove Fenner’s tracks are minimalist and blank-faced, but still have a bit of a swinging, surfy jangle to the guitars. Homeshake is an artist who’s toured as a live guitarist for Mac DeMarco, and he has a similar kind of easygoing mysterious retro vibe to him. The Cresting tracks are shadowy and shrouded, with “Bucks Vs. Pacers” featuring a dripping drum machine and spare, gentle synths, “Wolfe Pack” beginning with minimalist pianos and ending with some sort of distant field recording. Night Sides (who I have a tape by, which I still need to get around to listening to and reviewing) do some seriously beautiful floating ethereal pop, with “Blue Light” wailing away over a pittering drum machine beat, and “Dream” being the Everly Brothers cover that I felt like White Poppy hinted at on her tape on Constellation Tatsu tape, except this group does more of a straightforward a capella cover, instead of turning into shoegazey dream-pop. Chevalier Avant Garde contributes two songs which aren’t on their new LP, with “In Ruins” being more of a dour synth-pop anthem, and “Prepare” being a hypnotic sequenced oddity, sort of reminding me of some of Arthur Russell’s more synth-driven dance experiments from the mid-’80s, except this track doesn’t feature a beat at all, just some incidental cymbal-like sounds. Dirty Beaches provides two instrumentals, one a sleepy organ drone and the other being a tape-hissy country lament with harmonica. Femminielli does his intriguing minimal-synth French spoken word thing. Jef Barbara’s track is similar, but more uptempo and song-like, with something almost approaching a chorus at one point. A lot of the more straightforward lo-fi rock stuff on here doesn’t do it for me as much though.