There's something oddly deceptive yet fitting about the cover to Rainbow Lorikeet's debut Fractures: Never do these five tracks evoke a sense of paradise, nor does the flow of Nicoló Tescari's music have a semblance of the font's waviness. The compositional and aesthetic designs are, however, just as unusual and tongue-in-cheek as one another. Visual idiosyncrasies like this call to mind the recent Not Not Fun catalog, on which Rainbow Lorikeet would snugly fit, yet his penchant for noise has more in common with the Seattle-run Debacle imprint.
Although not evocative of picturesque tropical scenery, Tescari's various electronic timbres are as colorful as the bird he references. From performing with fellow Italian noisesmith Luca Sigurta in the claustrophobic dance of Pot Broken to his exploits on Fractures, his trajectory closely parallels that of Black Dice circa 2004-2012. Rainbow Lorikeet puts forth a more spacious system of looping by contrast to the duo format. Disparate samples feed into an undeviating beat, tonally isolated from one another though rhythmically braiding into a miscellaneous clamor. It's a tried-and-true formula, but the variables Tescari employs are unique to his curiosity.
Haunted modulations and apprehensive ticks arise from a tomb filled with MIDI controllers and short-circuiting MPCs on "Passage". Harsh static intrudes the mix unevenly panned as a spooky synth phrase emits equal-handed camp and genuine menace. Much of the same components permeate subsequent tracks, yet each one integrates at least one heterogeneous blip. The kick on "Night Thoughts Collide" sounds as if it's hacking through the recording, leaving digital tears in the fabric. A thin, squishy rhythm fastens the title track whereas trickling pulses interact with the fuzzy chords of "Blue Caves". Fractures follows a rather uniform pattern that may fault an album, but this under-half-hour quasi-EP's wonkily enticing air prevails.
[Stream/Buy Fractures from Debacle Records]
No comments:
Post a Comment