I should come clean first by acknowledging that Twine and I go way back. I've known both Greg Malcolm and Chad Mossholder since their days in Kent, Ohio, where I went to college. While my friendship with the duo might temper my opinion more than a little, I can honestly say that after 10 years of following their musical endeavors, Violets is the impressive culmination of their progress so far. Their earliest work wandered somewhere between IDM abstraction and dark, clinical drum & bass, somewhat a sign of the times while still putting forth their own twist on contemporary trends, sometimes dodging them altogether. In fact, avoiding trends is really how they set forth from that early point on, veering further and further off the beaten path of en vogue electronic music to incorporate disembodied voices, snippets of found sound, conversations, melancholy guitar work, vague references to post-rock and film scores, tape music and more. By the time they released the overlooked Circulation LP in 2000 on the tiny Swedish label Komplott, they'd virtually abandoned any relationship with genre and begun to pursue their own amalgamation of ideas and reference points, at times bewildering, alarming or chilling.
And so here they are, after a long and winding road, with their fifth album. Those familiar with their self-titled fourth album in 2003 (their first for Ghostly) will no doubt recognize some of the palette the pair have brought to Violets, a disorienting blend of atmospheres, electronics, textures and guitar work. The guitar is largely the focal point of this album, which shifts away from the more obvious programming and rhythm of Twine and transports it into a slightly different sound. But what these tracks do have in common with the group's last effort is the ability to scratch the surface, go underneath to the dark side. In fact, that has been what I would consider a running theme over all their records, irrespective of the arrangements within, tapping into a certain malaise within each of us. Conversations picked up on a phone scanner which may have ordinarily seemed trite or mundane suddenly take on an air of paranoia, like the futility of it all has been exposed within a bleaker, bigger picture.
The closest resemblances to Twine's last album are perhaps "Disconnected" and "Halo." "Halo" is the most overtly electronic sounding of the lot, with a pronounced, clipped staticky drum pattern; underneath reside off-kilter guitar strings and bottomless ambience. At first the plodding rhythm section of "Disconnected," all stop and start, and its accompanying stark guitar melody seem nearly incongruous, but it all falls in line about halfway through the track. This piece has the most clear sense of contrast, the lonely guitar up against a wall of erratic beats. If that's where they've already been, where are they going with the other material? Further in that direction, where the electronics become less obvious, and the distinction between what's electric vs. acoustic, sampled vs. played, natural vs. manipulated becomes more vague. The title track is a gloomy dirge, a series of drones, repetitive basslines and grimy guitar haze. Unnaturally prolonged tones and voices stretch overhead, most obviously in the surreal, distorted protest voices heard halfway through the track (sampled from an anti-Bush rally). Adding to the malaise, an urgent honking horn blows by in slow-motion – taken at face value, it's just another sound, but somehow it seems to point at our troubled times. At other times, the voices are less abstracted: the duo has always had a knack for uneasy voyeurism in its use of scanned conversations, and inasmuch the northern accent that introduces "Longsided" is transformed from what probably is just a mundane yokel conversation into something unsettling, especially when juxtaposed against a percolating rummage of beats and microtonal drones. The frantic girl who argues with her relative on "In Through The Devices" is genuinely anxious, crying over a boyfriend wanted by the law, over a weird, bending guitar pattern.
The most musically graceful moments occur in "Endormie," an extended track again built largely around a lilting guitar phrase and a sweet guest vocal from Alison Shaw of the Cranes. It has the most traditional narrative arc as far as songwriting goes, but does no disservice to the tension found elsewhere here; it is a glimmer of light in the darkness. "Lightrain" buzzes with electricity (literally) and drones, and midway is interrupted by a series of voicemail recordings; they begin clearly but soon disintegrate into Hafler Trio-esque nonsense, another ingredient in the kettle. That the album is bookended with short, lighter fare is a smart choice; the darkness in the center of this album is tempered by a bit of hope and back-handed optimism.
Violets demands a fair amount of attention and will draw you in below the surface before it fully resonates... the voices that speak to one another, occasionally to you directly, are only the surface; there is a lot to chew on here. What began for me as a curiosity has become a mild obsession; the obvious enthusiasm for detail that Twine relish is rubbing off on me, pulling me under, making this one of my favorite albums of 2008.
mp3: In Through The Devices | Lightrain
more info: Official artist site | Myspace | Ghostly artist profile
buy it: Ghostly Download Shop (all 3 Twine releases) | Amazon mp3 | Emusic | iTunes
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