Gate: The Numbers LP (Birdman, 2023)

July 12, 2023 at 7:52 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Gate: The Numbers LP

First released last year on Bandcamp, this 2012 recording from Michael Morley of the Dead C has now been pressed to vinyl thanks to Birdman. Morley dials his drum machine down to a click, making it imitate a lethargic drummer, and his guitar blusters and blares on top of it as if he’s setting off smoke bombs every time he touches the strings. The vocals stumble through the fog just as much, and it all feels like someone barely holding their mind together. The rudimentary drum machine really helps guide the current here, if it was a real drummer the musician would probably have the urge to over-play or freak out, and it just works better as a dead, stiff trudge like this. “Land” has a particular way of making the mind fuzzy, and then “Clouds Again” has something resembling a trip-hop beat, which throws things out of wack even further. “Film Envy” has some of the most overwhelming, overdriven noise on the album, and it finds a clever way to escape at the end.

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