The Answer Is In The Beat

Pairs: Your Feet Touch Ground, A Carousel tape (Metal Postcard, 2013)

March 5, 2014 at 12:03 am | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Surprise electronic/industrial album from Chinese noise-rock duo Pairs. Their usual work is harsh, blistering indie-punk, but this one strips the arrangements down to skeletal electronic pounding and tons of dark atmosphere. I guess it’s somewhat comparable to HTRK’s transformation from a guitar-driven post-punk band to dirgier, depressing (but utterly brilliant) electronic music. The 6 tracks on this tape (3 on each side) mostly run long, from 4:30 to almost 8 minutes, and take their time to explore their dark, sometimes terrifying, moods. The vocals here sort of remind me of B.R. Wallers of Country Teasers/The Rebel, just for how piercing and nasal they are. There’s also plenty of cursing, but it’s hard to tell exactly what he’s saying, with all the echo plus the accent. “Neighbours Trivia Night” and “Take Out This Celestial Body And Hang It Until It Is Dead” feature thumping 4/4 beats plus chilling atmosphere, and the last half of “Take Out…” is beatless, shifting drone. “Ballet Theme Downstream” is nothing more than a pounding thump and echo-drenched paranoid vocals. “Vatican Colours” is the most frightening of the bunch, 8 minutes of truly haunted ghost-like wailing, ticking drum machine, and shrieking vocals which eerily fade in and sound unnerving and possessed. It’s cathartic, but the way it’s mixed, how the elements slowly fade in and out, is almost smooth. “38,000 Feet In The Bathroom Line” is a diversion into confessional lo-fi acoustic folk, with pained vocals and frail strumming, and a few minutes of field recording from some sort of transit center at the end, and near silence for the last minute and a half. “Household Name” is another dirge set to a pounding drum machine, with plenty of layers of delay-enhanced vocals, and some fast-forwarding tape noise. The vocals on this one almost suggest a hollowed-out Skinny Puppy. Pretty surprising release, and it’s available as a free download on Bandcamp as well.