Skoghall Recordings – 5th April 2024
Christopher Nosnibor
I don’t really know too much about this release. It came my way via one inbox or another, with a download, but no cover art, no press release. And for some reason, I had expected it to be longer. But it’s a Skoghall release, and features Dave Procter (Legion of Swine, Dale prudent, Wharf Street Galaxy Band, etc ad infinitum) and some mates.
We’re looking at a couple of tracks, both short of five minutes. Nothing wrong with that – there’s a lot to be said for keeping things simple, and keeping things concise. Do I need the backstory, an essay on the contributors and their backgrounds? No, no I don’t. No-one does, really.
I do feel we’ve become altogether excessively invested in the wrong details in recent years. Time was when an act could release a record, it would be reviewed on its merits, or it’d slip under the radar and all we’d have would be the music. There would often be no mention of who did what on the record., and there would of course be no website, no source by which to obtain details of personnel or a bio. Nowadays, journos – people like me, although I don’t consider myself a music journalist by any means – get picked up on the slightest inaccuracy, we get asked to change spellings and correct who played bass, amend the cover art and the release date… This is not right. The press’ purpose is to independently proffer opinion, to critique, and where facts are missing, perhaps plug the gaps with assumptions, why not? While reviews are a part of the promotional cycle, it’s important – at least for me – to be apart from it all. In short, press is not PR, and should on no way feel obliged to give frothingly enthusiastic reviews simply because they’ve received an advance copy.
I digress, and admit that I tend to provide positive coverage of the releases which come my way which I like, rather than slapping down the releases I’m less keen on. When you get fifty or more submissions a day, you can afford to be selective, and besides, life is short and I’m not going to spend mine squandering energy on stuff I have no interest in.
I have a strong interest in this, though.
What’s on offer are two slices of minimalist electropop with a keen late seventies / early eighties feel. A single droning note hangs throughout the first track and a drum machine clips and clops away recreating the sound of early Young Marble Giants – only here, Procter drones and stutters a blank, low vocal delivery, half-robotic, half crooning, and drifting astray in a swamp of reverb.
The (virtual) flipside is dronier, noisier, a serrated-edged grating drone providing the backdrop to a challenging piece where a clanking percussion saws away and Procter rants -away in the background, again, immersed in reverb and low in the mix – about control and its uses and abuses. Now you’ve got control… what are you going to do with it? He asks, antagonistically.
The answer, well, it depends on who you’re asking. Power is a difficult thing, and – so hark back to an early SWANS track, what we see is power for power’s sake – use and abuse, but more of the latter. Show me – when was power last used for benevolence? I don’t want to be dragged down in this now, and there is plenty of mainstream outrage in circulation, so let’s get back to the release.
It’s succinct, it’s tense, it’s uncomfortable. Bring on ‘Two’.
AA
