Tonstartssbandht – An When – Does Are [Album Review]

Tonstartssbandht … seriously? Why not something simple, like The Beatles, or The Ruttles?

These fuckers are out of their minds though. An When is a must-have, super-lo-fi conscription of the chi of Ariel Pink, acts on the Hyperdub label, Times New Viking, Afrobeat, Our Brother The Native, Animal Collective circa Danse Manatee, Ganglians, Twink’s sample-delica and any number of up-and-coming Sun Araw/Not Not Fun-style bands.

The biggest problem with this record is where to start, as every song is distinctly different. The strongest track, a re-imagining of Dan Deacon‘s fabulous “Wet Wings” (from Bromst, a great lil’ record, says me), pelts the listener with a barrage of wet/wild vocal drops.

Sampling an old-school vocal line to delirious effect, ”Little April Showers” builds upon itself with repetition like the aforementioned Dan Deacon track, settling comfortable into some bass-driven gurgling as a slow fade takes the whole tune down.

Another cut constructed from the vocals-up is “Imenope,” an echo-chamber, from-the-bottom-of-the-Grand-Canyon assault that creates a compelling drone from several layers of cascading voices. It’s a fitting lead-up to the all-out sprawl of “Softly Kidding,” a slow-motion cloud of coruscating voices, yelps and what sounds like an eff’d-up bow’d instrument.

From these three highlights you can go anywhere. There’s some of-the-moment lo-fi rock-dinosaur bashing on par with Zumm Zummmm (anyone remember those shitkickers?), organ-grinding atop a drifting river raft, a song about Andy Summers, dub-stepping and, predominantly, experiments that pit the human voice against technology to see which will win out.

I’m still trying to figure out who won. You’ll have fun doing the same thing.