The Pattern Prism by Vowels (listen HERE) hit me immediately. It was a cold, hard brick to the face on a Monday morning; several bricks, in fact, and each time one of them hit my gullet a snare, cymbal, high-hat or bass drum sounded off.
It was painful, yet I found a way to derive pleasure from it. Mornings work like that for me. Nothing makes sense — I don’t want to eat, I don’t want to talk, I don’t want to do anything but find a way to wake myself up and get myself back to the excited state I was in when I went to bed the night previous.
It’s hard to be a snobby, “I am NOT a morning person” type of person when you’re being enveloped by an assload of futuristic sounds and rhythms. Vowels is comprised of a drummer, Chris Walmsley, and heavily decorated electronic scene veteran James Rutledge, of Pedro (I reviewed one of his albums under the Pedro guise a year or so back for TMT).
If their super-strange arsenal of tweaked, frayed, hanging-by-a-thread synths and effects — coupled with drum beats that are either mind-melting or at least prog-worthy circa Neu! — is any indication, I hope more producers in the digital world branch out and start jamming with living, breathing rhythm sections.
As a card-carrying drummer I have to fight for the rights of human musicians, after all …
Just for a giggle and a shit, imagine Aphex Twin mastermind Richard James teamed up with Dale Crover … or a tandem featuring one of the dudes from Plaid and J. Stanier from Battles … or if Hella whizkid Zach Hill teamed up with Prefuse 73 for an album (wait-wait-wait, shit; that … that actually happened just recently circa Diamond Watch Wrists and it wasn’t up to snuff).
What I’m trying to say is this is an exciting development with several interesting wrinkles that never get flabby or suffer for lack of fleshing-out. Rutledge — much like Lymbic System and other groups, perhaps to lesser effect — shows that you can make interesting sample-/synth-/pattern/glitch-based music work with live musicians if you keep it buzzing with activity like an electric beehive.
And that he does, that he does. Even what amounts to between-song skits come out golden, filled to the brim with all manner of nuclear digital fallout. Don’t think it’s all manufactured, either; though treated, there are hints of flute, steel drum, violin, an inept all-clarinet marching band, what sounds like the audio equivalent of a comet streaking through the sky, those trippy Steve Miller interludes on fast-forward or chopped into bits … you get the point.
Rutledge has been around the block a few times, and it’s obvious his ducks are in a line straighter than an arrow. You get the feeling his craft is effortless, honed carefully over years of experimentation and yearning to fill your ears up like beaver cheeks.
Walmsley makes it all real. His drumming is fluid, scene-setting and affluent in the language being spoken here. It takes the most flexible sort to undertake such a project. Walmsley’s a resourceful drummer that takes what his collaborators give him and nothing more/less.
“Appendix,” the centerpiece of The Pattern Prism, is his coming-out party. As Rutledge puts his pedal to the floor, riffing through all sorts of sounds and seizure-inducing hums, chirps and whines, Walmsley flails around his kit with a tumble and a roll — several, actually.
At nearly 12 minutes you’d think the tune would meet its maker around the halfway point, but not so. Conversely, it uses its long running time to morph into a giant blob of noise, an audio Deathstar with lazers, flames, explosions and wars lapping away at its foundations.
It’s truly devastating. It’s one of the best “songs” (HA!) I’ve heard all year. Best of all, it’s not alone its awesomeness; “Drums Gone Awry,” (another high-water mark for 2009; stunning) “Eh Uh” and “Closing Circles,” which all fall in The Pattern Prism‘s second half, keep the splatterfest initiated by ”Appendix” in running order.
I’m frankly tickled to death by this wicked-tricky record. It’s got all the stuff that make groups like Pedro (not to mention Rutledge’s other material), Black Mold, Daedelus, Torngat, Lucky Dragons and Crombie great and takes the sans-vocals electronics/glitch/noise/etc. persuasion to the next level.
I’d say I can’t wait to see what these guys do next, but this fucked-up pop tart doesn’t launch from the record-label toaster until sometime in September, and the band has only played one show. Here’s to anticipating with vigor every move Vowels make from here on out.
