for me, one of the most enjoyable aspects of music - and more specifically, music consumption - has always been the moment of discovery of something previously completely unknown - the quintessential “a-ha!” moment.
when you couple this with the maxim that birds of a highly-creative feather do indeed seem to flock together, understanding the dj-culture concept of trainspotting - following the dots - becomes easy to understand.
as great is the shock that this revelation produces, it is magnified even further upon discovery of yet other acts, labels, and artists connected through the initial find. tonight, i had one of those moments.
now, in all fairness, i’m going to go sort of quickly through the first find, because they’re semi-well known; they are a band call faunts. hailing from edmonton, alberta, this four-piece founded by brothers tim and steven batke have produced an album titled high expectations/low results and have just released a 40-minute ep entitled M4, which is a collection of film-score compositions. according to the band’s site they are working on a new album at the moment, and hope to release it this coming summer on friendly fire records, which is also home to david and the citizens and asobi seksu.
now, what do they sound like? a lot of the press i’ve been reading on them - as well as some they’ve written themselves - mention acts like sigur ros and mogwai, and yes, the band does indeed incorporate moments of noise, both atmospheric and jarring. electronic twinkles bubble up here and there. but the songs are songs, and while these days that has almost become an insult, in this case, it is moreso a testament to the focus of the group. where this really matters is in the best moments of the album - tracks like “gone with the day,” “low results,” “parler de la pluie et du beau temps,” among others - what i’m hearing, folks, is by-and-large some of the best slowcore i’ve heard in a long, long time. fans of codeine, low, et al, take note - when this band slows down, they really nail it. not to say that the quicker parts of high expectations/low results are out of place, but i find myself looking through the album repeatedly to pull out those tracks that bring to mind dirty, cloudy days of heartbreak.
faunts - memories of places we’ve never been (from high expectations/low results, 2005, friendly fire records)
faunts - what i’d love to hear you say (from high expectations/low results, 2005, friendly fire records)
now to part two - joel hitchcock is, according to faunt’s myspace, no longer with the group. however, he is continuing his work as set transition, creating what would best be described as atmospheric, ambient beatscapes reminiscent of the mid-90’s heyday of the craft. his music is not anachronistic though; the lush orchestrations bring to mind a relevant moby circa “god moving across the face of the water” coupled with the attention to rhythmic detail of boards of canada. add to the equation that the sample tracks provided on the set transition site are in fact live tracks from a 2004 performance, and you’ll get an idea of how impressive hitchcock’s work is - this is not an easy genre to pull off in a live setting regardless of what the anti-electronics crowd might think.
as always at tSoS, we’re about instant gratification: