ALDO VAN EYCK – Take Four
If anything wildly different is to arrive out of guitar music, it will have to contend with its past like someone digging through uncomfortable family secrets and figuring out a new way in which to frame the information.
Jazz, especially, has hit its artistic and technical peak early. This helped set up certain expectations that all new musicians would be judged on. It meant that few young people learning to play music felt inclined to try their hand at jazz unless it was for the reason of mastering some sort of level of proficiency in the same way that you would manage a high score within a game.
Japanese group Aldo van Eyck are coming to terms with the intricate and complex history of non-classical music. One way of doing this is by taking apart and repackaging Dave Brubeck’s Take Five. On Take Four, the group sounds like math rock musicians collaborating with the Gorillaz on a term paper about disassembling traditional jazz tunes. Extreme yet exciting approach.
Sky is Alright – Indigo Moon
Making shoegaze music is a lot like deciding that you will earn a living by writing poetry. It takes a lot of commitment and requires a fair deal of talent. There’s no real way to just hack it out by playing choppy power chords and singing about not being able to get over high school.
Now, a lot of bands begun their careers by adopting this approach. For the majority of them, the two problems previously described proved to be too much of a burden. The Smashing Pumpkins, a band whose debut resembles the tune we’re reviewing, found out quickly that challenging the Seattle bands in the hit parade was a better career opportunity. And, many other bands, of course, simply found out that earning a considerable amount of knowledge about effect pedals and music production was too much of an effort.
Sky is Alright’s Indigo Moon showcases a dup that has neither of those two issues. The song is hazy and moody but also memorable. The production is crisp, and there’s a real vision of how it is presented. There’s also some menace to the song. It’s what would have happened to many of the grunge bands, perhaps, had their bread and butter remained live performing.
