Gobble Gobble – Neon Graveyard
Gobble Gobble come out of Edmonton in Canada, part of a small but apparently quite determined experimental music community down there under the Hydeaway umbrealla who seem to be doing some very good things. I was sent a CD sampler by this group a while ago, and it was interesting – it certainly showed that there seems to be a good bit of collective energy forming in that part of the world.
Cecil Frena, who sent me this, has assembled an eclectic and fascinating album of scratchy electronica which casts its blanket of crackling subversion over a few different genres. This makes Neon Graveyard, for me, rather more than just another collection of indie pop songs smothered in electronic clicks and whizzes and a constant hiss of artificially created background noise. Yes, admittedly, there is a lot of that particular technique to be found on this album, but it is never treated as the raison d’etre of the whole piece, as can happen in this particular part of the musical landscape.
What defines Neon Graveyard in my eyes is actually more the undercurrents than the surface eddies. Songs like O Sacred Dandruff and Piles of Salt seem to actually take a lot of cues from contemporary R’n'B, particularly in the style of the vocal delivery. They sound almost like R’n'B songs which have been put through a rather severe cycle in your dishwasher and this, you will probably not be surprised to hear, I like. At other times a form of Gameboy pop swirls into focus, then this same approach fixes itself to an interlude of piano (Ash Fountain, for example) which sounds superfically far more like classical than anything you’d happen across in an indie pop landscape.
This flitting from one underpinning genre to another, all held together by a more uniform style at the surface, gives the album both a really solid coherence and a happy variety. The style, in fact, fits the title very well indeed. I like.
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Gobble Gobble – Eggs in Carrion
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I didn’t much like this. The 8-bit/glitch/Gameboy thing is getting on my tits, I have to be honest. There’s a couple I like, but this one, not sure why, but it didn’t stick to the walls. Weirdly it was because of the word Neon that I stopped being even vaguely interested. It’s being used so much in titles these days it prompts a yawn when I see it. Sorry guys *shrug*
I think the tape-hiss and crackle effects are such potent and overpowering ingredients to add to the mix, that you have to be very prudent in their use.
I feel they should be treated in the same way as you would add a condiment or spice to a meal, the amount you should use varies from one dish to the next, but if you get the balance wrong the finished dish is often unpalatable.
Unfortunately, that’s precisely what’s happened here. It sounds like there’s possibly some pleasing tunes here. The second half of the first song, in particular, and the piano arrangement on the second one sound intriguing.
However, these tempting filéts mignon have been slathered in too much cheap ketchup for my taste.
I’m really hungry now.
Ignore Dylan, Bart, he’s auditioning for a job at Wine Tasters Weekly. “Oooh, I detect pine, fennel, raspberries… and a distinct arome d’analogie being flogged repeatedly – far, in fact, beyond its inevitable demise due to said flogging.”
I agree that the hiss and crackle are a little over-used in places being, as they are, pretty much ubiquitous. But I do definitely still like what they do to the tunes, which might be a little too sweet otherwise.
Whoop DC you’re back……..thought you must have lost you love of music over the past couple of weeks….let me be the first to welcome you back to the fold of love….
Gobble Gobble….isn’t that code for something?
There’s nothing wrong with returning to an anology once again to conclude a passage of prose. I thought it was quite elegant actually.
Certainly not a case of anything being flogged repeatedly.
Grow an imagination, man!
“these tempting filéts mignon”
This tempting analogy has been slathered in too much overkill for my taste.
And as for calling a comment on a blog a ‘passage of prose’…
Is it just me or would the second track be infinitely better without all the effects bollocksing around. I wish bands like this would have a little faith that their music is actually listenable to and stop needlessly obscuring it behind toys.
Yes, Ben. Precisely.
That’s what I said.
Only with filets mignon.
And, Matthew, what the hell is it, if it isn’t prose?!
I know what prose is, Dylan, thank you, but I rather think that sort of description over-legitimises the kind of verbal cough which represents the average blog comment.
Ben (and the rest of you) – I wouldn’t entirely dispute your point that the hiss and so on are applied with little subtlety. But I would say that something of the sort is needed just to drag some of the songs away from the sound they might have without the noise.
Tracks like Eggs in Carrion would be fine, but some of the songs which are more pop would become, in my view, too pop without the hiss and crackle. In fact, taking an RnB pop song and adding all sorts of mess is pretty much the aesthetic point of those songs, surely, so losing it entirely would simply give you a different beast altogether.
Having said that, I do agree (for all the ludicrous language) with Dylan’s first point, that such effects have to be administered with a lot of care and a lot of restraint. In a fair few cases on this album I would certainly concede that they seem to be used a little automatically, but I still think I prefer the sound of it ‘with’ to what I think the sound of it would be ‘without’.
So, while I agree that a bit more sophistication in use of those tools might well be called for, I still think that they are the right tools to use, and that largely the right kind of thing is being done with them.
I like it
And honestly, have you heard loads of stuff like this already? Because it’s certainly not made its way into my inbox or radio… at all.
call me sheltered,
Tart
There’s definitely a lot of ‘with fuzz added’ electronica doing the rounds, Tart, on that level I agree with DC entirely.
I would disagree with the gameboy glitch-pop thing though, because I think the genres played with on this record are a lot more varied than that, which is why I like it. It works very well as an album, if you ask me.
gameboy/glitch whatever is probably the wrong phrase/genre to use, but it’s all much of a muchness to me these days. I’m just sick of getting all these albums through the mail & none of them doing anything even vaguely different with their casio/bontempti/computer blips & boops &, well, fuck all else. I mean, Christ, La Roux is the future of ‘pop’ music now? Yikesafuckinlive.
Tart, what you could do if you want to listen to stuff like this is simply copy some music you like onto a cassette tape, get an old Walkman, bury the Walkman and the cassette in the garden, dig them up some time later, put batteries in the Walkman, run the tape for a few hours until the batteries are almost flat, give the Walkman headphones to an enthusiastic puppy to chew on, ask a friend to clatter you about the head with a shovel until you develop tinittus, take the headphones away from the puppy, plug them into the Walkman, place them on your head, place your head in the washing machine, and just click ‘play’.
Brilliant!
DC – I am getting that way with dusty Americana suffused with slightly Gothic folk imagery, and also with bands who are a bit too cabaret/circusy/Eastern European with all their instruments and such. It can be very difficult to find the patience to sit down and listen without the knee jerk ‘oh, another one of those‘ reflex kicking in.
I really strongly disagree that Gobble Gobble have fuck all else beyond the beeps. In actual fact if I were to level a criticism at this album it would actually be that because there is so much else there that they could perhaps afford to use the beeps and the crackle with a somewhat lighter touch.
But if you look beyond that, the underlying bones of this album are very varied, that really can hardly be disputed, and I would personally say quite unusual, which might be more contentious.
La Roux is just shit, of course, no argument there.
Dylan, I think you already have tinnitus. And you can’t spell. And you want to take a shovel to my head. So fuck off.
kisses,
Tart
i love la roux