Reviews

Zum Audio

Body Double Milk Fed LP

I had to mull over this one to get it and avoid jumping to easy conclusions. Ex-MANSION helmer Candace Lazarou has built ten warped and weary pop songs that evoke familiar notes of ’90s indie rock with industrial flourishes, pulsing guitars, and even momentary shoegaze walls of noise. It sounds like I’m describing a vintage wine or something, but the production on this is so dense and the lyrics so cryptic that it almost asks to be picked apart piece by piece. Like a problem you keep turning over in your head and can’t fully resolve. At its best it reminds me a bit of NICO’s Camera Obscura album where she sang “Show me the way to warning / Warning for the morning light / I will stab it with a knife / The blinding sun / The heartbeat for the time to come.” Lazarou flips this foreboding blade and light imagery with her own “I was born in a violet light / Sniffin’ sand off a paper knife / I was born with a gun in my face / I was born in outer space.” Am I overthinking this comparison? Maybe. But some people want music that’s awkward to access, that you puzzle over. That’s BODY DOUBLE.

Miscomings / Sea Moss Big Tube Scene split CD

Portland, Oregon duo SEA MOSS starts this split off with pure sorcery of gnarly synths and electronics layered on top of masterful drumming that conjures rhythmic seizures. Even though it’s stripped down in its instrumentation, it’s by no means a type of music you could call minimalistic. It’s very “extra” in every way that actually counts, and scratches a part of my brain that not much else can reach—that explains why I fell in love with this split in the first ten seconds. And when we switch over to the MISCOMINGS side, we are greeted with more of a conventional band setup of guitars, drums, bass and vocals…but of course, the music is anything but conventional. It’s extremely chaotic, unbelievably fun, and reminiscent of some of my all-time favorite bands PRE and LOCUST. From eerie and deranged melodic parts to noisy, grinding sections, MISCOMINGS deliver all that you could ever need from a noise rock band. I know I wouldn’t be able to do it justice if I were to dissect their sound further, so I’ll just say that it’s some of the best music I’ve heard in a while. On top of both bands giving this split their absolute best individually, the two amazing and aptly-titled collaborative tracks, “Seacomings” and “MissMoss,” perfectly summarize the whole split. Even though SEA MOSS and MISCOMINGS don’t sound that much alike, they’re spiritually the best pair possible and the chemistry between them is priceless. All in all, Big Tube Scene is undoubtedly a ten out of ten in my book, and I’m ready to die on this hill.