Dusted Reviews
Artist: J. Torrance Album: The Archduke Of The Furrycats Label: Sijis Review date: Apr. 8, 2004 |
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The Archduke of the Furry Cats EP, on upstart London label Sijis, comprises a bodyrock workout of jump cut elliptical house, pastoral ambience and thick drum chunks. As a debut, the strengths bode well for further experimentation and honing of technique.
The strung together, and somewhat unfortunately titled, “Gwyneth Paltrow Butt Naked (Now That’s What I Call Coldplay)” samples clips of late-Miles style fusion into a clear narrative beat. “Paltrow” successfully sequences thumping piano as a skillful downbeat and trods out upright bass and high-hat to complete the sentence. The fumbling eventually becomes coherent and rumbles on for a few moments before a gradual deconstruction. The song dies to the whirring sound of a broken amplifier.
“Yard of Ale” begins as dark house until a female voice emerges, singing a wordless aria – all tones and layers of echo-ed sadness that eventually fade into ether. The singing provides a nice “human” contrast to the mechanic clangs; the melodic sense on “Yard” is excellent and at times the beats seem almost too intrusive.
“Yard,” however, tops out at 10 minutes, and like the opener, wears a bit thin. At times, the clear and well composed sounds tend to work against the introductory sections. Alternately, longer song form allows “Coney Island Dogbiscuit” to survey various field recordings and sound samples over another molasses bump.
“Bucket of Blood” rounds out Archduke and sounds a bit too mechanical. Snippets of kung-fu movies pitted against slick skitters fail to fully congeal. A background stuttering synth provides some extra weight, but the samples sound out of place.
By Marc Gilman
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