CD Reviews

Gang Gang Dance | Saint Dymphna

Warp (2008)

By DANIEL BROCKMAN | October 28, 2008

3.0 Stars

There’s a fine line between submitting to the infinite in the name of transcendence and being a self-indulgent jerk-off, and it’s one the NYC “underground” “collective” GGD have walked precariously for several albums and EPs. How to throw together so many interesting textures and flavors without turning out a batch of inedible crap, right? Well, they figured it out with Saint Dymphna (so named after the patron saint of mental illness, among other things): set some time limits, make shit catchy, and rein the magic in. It’s a strategy belied at the outset: “Bebey” is the sound of three musicians opening a portal to Hades, but will they know what to do once they step through? That question is answered once the song flows into the glittering Afro-crunk of “First Communion”: Liz Bougatsos’s wailing vocals collide with some seriously fuzzed bass while trailing spidery guitar runs that extend like DNA strands to infinity. Jam-band haters, rest easy: even though this album has a song called “House Jam,” it’s a tightly wound exercise in disciplined psychedelia, with motorik beats and powerful vocals. Saint Dymphna is the sound of a band of psychedelic dabblers finally getting their shit together.

Gang Gang Dance trip the light fantastic
Some musicians craft songs meant to elicit an emotion, and some fashion sonic mazes for the listener to get lost in. Over the course of a decade-plus career in shape-shifting psych, Brooklyn's Gang Gang Dance have found a way to do both.
Photos: Gang Gang Dance at Brighton Music Hall
Gang Gang Dance performs live at the Brighton Music Hall on July 8, 2011.
Bibio | Ambivalence Avenue
Since this new record by Wolverhampton's Stephen James Wilkinson (a/k/a Bibio) has done nothing but delight me, I'm going to honor the sentiments posted to his MySpace blog and spare him the f-word and all variants thereof.
Tropicália storm
When Sérgio Dias takes to the Somerville Theatre stage this Sunday with the current incarnation of Os Mutantes, it's a safe bet he'll be beaming with gratitude. "I'm riding the same wave," he says of his band's legendary Brazilian albums, "but this time I have my eyes open."
Flying Lotus | Cosmogramma
Only an experimental laptop artist whose music exists primarily for pensive white weedheads would purport his new album to be “basically the studies that map out the universe and the relations of heaven and hell.”
Born Ruffians | Say It
Over the past half of Warp’s robust 20-year run, the label’s enduring legacy as a vanguard force in electronic music has drifted as its tastes have gone positively eclectic. The mixed-media future folk of Bibio, the experimental soul of Jamie Lidell, the polished post-punk nuts of Maximo Park.
James Lidell | Compass
Hey, I love Veckatimest as much as the next wimp, but the prospect of Grizzly Bear multi-instrumentalist Chris Taylor’s offering production to the latest album from Jamie Lidell didn’t seem promising when it was announced earlier this year. After all, Lidell has spent the past half-decade effecting an unlikely transition from introspective IDM nerd to extroverted R&B dude.
Deerhunter | Halcyon Digest
The only reason Halcyon Digest doesn't get a perfect four stars is that absolute classic isn't Deerhunter's style.
The Smith Westerns | Dye It Blonde
If the Smith Westerns' homonymous 2009 debut perfectly captured the awkward, waning days before high-school graduation, then their sophomore effort is the Chicago indie quartet's college existential-crisis record, more sprawling and a tad wiser while still hitting its target of raw, British Invasion–style psychedelia
Woods | Sun & Shade
As with previous Woods records the instantly entrancing element is Earl's Neil Young–inspired falsetto, wrapped in swirls of gauzy tape hiss.
Micachu & The Shapes | Never
Like her stylistic sista Merrill Garbus of tUnE-yArDs, Micachu's Mica Levi makes pixelated, abstract anti-pop that sounds like marionettes jamming in an aluminum factory.
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Topics: CD Reviews , Swearing and Invective, psychedelia, Gang Gang Dance, More

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