record reviews:
The Dead Science
Frost Giant
(Absolutely Kosher)
In Dante's Upper Hell, in a smoky red draped lounge somewhere in the borderlands between the second and third circle, heaven's illegitimate exiles crowd dark wood tables and bob their heads to The Dead Science's fluttering rhythms and whisper-echo Sam Mickens' vocal flute. Both sultry and macabre, Frost Giant might work just as well creeping into the black undertables of One Eyed Jacks: the odd comforts of our own dangers against the gravities and unknowns of the forest outside.
The left side of the Dead Science equation is an unforced combination of jazz non-structure, minor-key guitar, occasional bowed strings, and Mickens' sinusoidal falsetto. It's gracefully weird, and crosses–with these sketchy credentials–into the increasingly porous pop music province. Tempting as it is to dwell on those, yes, different vocals, the Dead Science's real contraband lies in their sound's gnarled jazz roots. The music finds it's foundation in a sort of loosely reined free/avant/improv style. The guitar is the rhythmic rope, while the bass, drums, and vocals are the wanderers. It's contrary to most everything in pop music, and enough credit is rarely given to people like Mickens (usually drummer/singers), who can carry both the melody and rhythm while guiding–not fighting–the play of the drum and bass. It's something akin to walking two bird-dogs and pointing out every mallard along the way.
Yes, yes, yes, The Dead Science warrant comparison to their closest contemporary/coconspirator, Xiu Xiu. Most of the writing about them centers upon this relationship, the two bands similarities and–not often enough–their polarities. The voices have easy parallels: the emotive waver and dark content. But, at the same time, they arouse different regions of feeling. Xiu Xiu's Jamie Stewart's personal miseries loop us back to our own (and sometimes make us morbidly curious about his). In the abstract, our horrors are community property. However, the gloom of The Dead Science first seems like no one's, and then everyone's, property, which is nearly the same, but not quite, as true universality. As the album title, Frost Giant, alludes, these songs are more likely to seed myth and fable: their roots are found in the community of instability, unknowns, and shared fears, rather than contributing to it. These treacherous lives, dreams, and almost futures have the sense of being ours rather than being mine. We are rarely forced to form abstractions from them.
Whether they're oppositions or complements, it's oddly comforting to have two of our most significant pop infiltrators be agents of sorrow and disquiet. It's knowing that we won't be left behind, whether we're on the perimeters of the inferno, drinking whisky with Jacques, or waking up and wondering what we've forgotten from the night.
— Michael Byrne
More by this writer:
Solenoid - Supernature
Four Tet / Jamie Lidell - Live - October 1, 2005
Animal Collective - Feels
Xiu Xiu - Feature Interview
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