Exploded View - Obey
On the new effort by Exploded View, the German-Mexican experimentalists abandon their raw live recording process, and instead use overdubs and multi-instrumentalism to produce their most ambitious material to date.
Grabbing you by the ear, Hugo Quezada and Martin Thulin conspire with Annika Henderson's synths and vocalising to lead us through the tantalising trajections of ten disparate chambers, collectively colluding to create a fascinating, if sometimes disturbing, lucid dream-like experience. The results resemble a chaotic collision of Can and Velvet Underground in an industrial workshop, ricocheting against hypnotic excursions engineered to restore calm to the most furrowed of brows.
With an underlying message of revolution – 'do away with apathy, take control', Exploded View's journey is not always the most comfortable of nocturnal sojourns - battles of the ego wage war in Dark Stains, and we are reminded of time wasted in Gone Tomorrow. The title track becomes a dysfunctional shuffle that stirs self-dissatisfaction and re-kindles spirits of rebellion reinforced through Henderson's beat poet delivery.
Sleepers, with its Gothic grandiosity and ethereal vocals becomes the fulcral point of the entire collection, preparing the way for a passage through industrial temptation in Come On Honey and moving towards the climactic 'tick tock' conclusion of Rant.
Not for sufferers of disturbed nights or pre-revolution anxieties.
8/10
