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artist.....: Pearl Necklace
album......: Soft Opening
year.......: 2013
label......: Smalltown Supersound
STS236CD
source.....: CDDA
moodswing..: Electronic
releasesize: 57.34 MB
tracks.....: 10
length.....: 33:22
encoder....: VBR LAME 3.98.4 -v0
quality....: avg. 234kbps
scenealized: 04.08.2015
Pearl Necklace is the Brooklyn-based
duo Bryce Hackford and Frank Lyon,
assisted on several tracks here by
Alexis Georgopoulos, also known as Arp.
Between them they've honed ten songs
that feel by turns home-brewed,
custom-built, organically created and
template-averse. Soft Opening is a
worthy addition to a cottage industry
of misshapen, modified electronica in
the age-old traditions of groups like
Cluster that unassumingly sounds like
nothing you've ever heard before.
Clocking in at a total of about 32
minutes, the album never feels like
it's outstaying its welcome. Its
opening track, "Another Invocation of
the Breath," is typical in its
fetchingly quaint juxtapositions,
parping and hissing like a steamboat in
an old Mickey Mouse cartoon.
"Doorbell"'s dotty keyboard line veers
on and off kilter, as if dodging the
periodic, sampled noise of what sounds
like someone throwing slops out of a
high window. Despite its rattling
backdrop of saucepan lids, the loping
backbeat and warm, sustained tones of
"Did You Feel It" offset any excess of
mere quirkinessùa necessary measure of
intensity, especially when followed by
"Radio Love" and its inebriated
collapse of wah-wahs and squeezebox
synths. But then there's the spectral
"Why Toto," with a backbeat that sounds
like its scrunching through heavy snow,
lit up by the eerie, throbbing drones
of a horror movie organ.
"Pearlfriend" is among the album's
loveliest moments, its hazy turnover of
shimmering pastoral distortions
creating a sort of erotic churn.
"Don't" rears and lurches over and over
like the head of a deep house vocalist
trapped in a lava lamp, while "Ah Ah"
is a crashing, banging joust of
vaulting, arpeggiated riffing. Finally,
"Wist" (featuring Andrew Vanwyngarden)
trails sunset clouds of reverbùsheer,
unadulterated beauty to offset any
element of over-fussy experimentalism.
Soft Opening is, of course, hardly
dance floor friendlyùmost of these
tracks feel like they would evaporate
instantaneously if they tried to leave
the house, let alone take their place
in any public space. As a debut
collection of electronic oddities, it
works just fine, though. Next time out,
Pearl Necklace should try to stretch
out and expand on what they've achieved
here.
psst, more info at smalltownsupersound.com
01 Another Invocation Of The Breath 01:58
02 Doorbell 03:09
03 Did You Feel It 07:21
04 Radio Love 02:51
05 Leak 01:20
06 Why Toto 04:24
07 Pearlfriend 03:01
08 Don't 03:55
09 Ah Ah 02:25
10 Wish 02:58