Soil to Seed – Matthew Dear Soil to Seed – Matthew Dear (Buy, Free Download)
If your mind is racing, then so will the sounds on Black City by Matthew Dear. Unlike some of Dear’s earlier work (both solo and under aliases Audion and Jabberjaw), the sound on Black City can’t be sifted through as easily. Since your mind really needs to interpret everything going on and needs to take its time to travel down the hierarchy of subtleties, it takes a relaxed mind to fully appreciate it . Not many albums (especially of his genre) can elicit such a polarizing opinion upon multiple listens.
Matthew Dear delivers a lot of good, and conversely, some disappointment on Black City. On the positive side, the avant-garde style of electropop is extremely wild, but also insanely creative. It really feels as this offers a more mature, more refined approach to some of the groundbreaking concepts Dear has tried to explore on past attempts. You really can feel totally enveloped by the weight of the intricacies, but only if you let the music reach you. It’s a slowly dispersing wave that will move slowly yet efficiently to attach itself to your listening soul if receptive, which makes the music rather brilliant (regardless of personal taste).
The big detraction that shows its ugly head all too often is that some of the tracks leave something to be desired vocally. It sounds too much like the robotic, warping beats are supposed to compliment the mechanical sounding vocals. While Dear might be conceding that his intent is to have your mind focus on the myriad of background sounds than the prominent voice in the foreground, it’s sadly quite a glaring clash and thus rendering your ears incapable from escaping some of the monotonous chanting. It’s a combination that detracts from the true potential of the mind-encompassing sound created by Dear, especially in the tracks “Monkey” and “You Put A Smell On Me”.
The three strongest tracks on the record make this album worth considering listening to. “Little People (Black City)”, which serves as the title track for the album, features the most undulating beat and freest sound of the album. “Slowdance” sounds like a Crystal Castles track on this year’s self-titled release that’s on a bad acid trip (which is exactly as unique, yet rewarding as it sounds). Lastly, “Gem” is exactly that as well as being a nice way to close out the album. It almost feels like the bedtime story that coddles you right to sleep in the way that we all love when we’re 3 years old.
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Photo courtesy of Will Calcutt
