Experimental

Album Review: Petricor – First Breath

Petricor First Breath
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Petricor enter our awareness with their debut release on Fluttery Records. What better place to start! First Breath releases during a year that has seen a resurgence of quality releases after what some have said has been a drought in instrumental music. Fitting that Petricor is the name they chose to help frame their identity. Emotive, crescendo brimming Post Rock at its finest. Even the album art can be seen as the duality of the internal narrative. Their music toes the thin line between introspect and what we project to those around us to see, or hear for that matter.

First Breath rises from the sediment and ash like a heat wave you can see through the distance. Frail waves of texture deftly coat your senses, and slowly lift your mood like an Elysian zephyr weaving beneath a deep canopy. Melodies that shimmer with an ethereal construct designed to reconcile our varied perception into one accord. Each track begins with a coy hook to ignite my interest and cement my commitment to listen beyond a long proven Post Rock formula. Prudent synths augment the whole versus overshadowing their arrangements. Petricor do a classy job in staving off overproduction and do not succumb to the addition of too many elements.

The only song with vocals, the album’s title track, articulates the dichotomy that lies within the debilitating manifests of emotion, that wanting to flee that which perils us to feel. But no matter how far you run, you are still right there. The old adage of “Time heals all wounds” is only superficially sound in its context. Surface wounds yield in time, but those that exist beneath have their own life cycle.

Petricor’s first musical statement urges us to shake off the saddle of the ties that bind us to a static being and embrace growth as a mission, not only a far flung idea. There is no silver bullet for Post Rock. And yes, we have heard this musical equation before, but Petricor execute it just right! Listen further. Trust me.

Petricor links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/petricortheband
Bandcamp: https://petricor-band.bandcamp.com/album/first-breath
Fluttery Records page: https://flutteryrecords.com/flttry173

Lance Turner

Buried Treasure: La Dispute – Eight

La Dispute Here Hear
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Buried Treasure is a semi-regular feature that explores some hidden musical gems – the rare and forgotten B-sides, covers, hidden tracks, live versions and alternative takes that deserve some recognition.

Melodic hardcore band La Dispute just dropped their new track “Thirteen“, so this is a good time to shine a spotlight on some of their non-album material.

La Dispute have three EPs in the Here, Hear series that are wildly different from their regular output. Rather than the intense hardcore we are used to, these EPs include untitled experimental spoken word songs based on literature, poetry, philosophy and prose. When I saw La Dispute play with Balance & Composure in Wellington a few years ago I was delighted that they even included the song ‘Nine’ into their set by playing it as the first encore.

La Dispute here hear liner notes

Setting up for recording in a garage. Picture taken from the Here, Hear II EP liner notes

The series is delightfully low-fi and creative. Most of the tracks use unconventional objects as instruments, like clapping wooden blocks together in a basement. Other examples that stood out as interesting were using a pocketknife as a guitar slide, flipping book pages, or using a pencil sharpener for percussion. You can even hear a dog howling in the song “Seven”.

They draw on a variety of literary sources for inspiration, such as Edgar Allen Poe’s gothic Annabel Lee, and Kenneth Grahame’s charming The Wind in The Willows. My favourite though, is the song ‘Eight’, adapted from the afterword of J. Michael Straczynski’s graphic novel Midnight Nation.

Written in the form of a diary reflection, Straczynski explores the dichmidnight-nation-cover2otomies of his city, with the characters that feature during the day and during the night seemingly from two different worlds. This theme provides the basis for the graphic novel, a story of the lost and forgotten trying to find their way out from beneath the cracks of society.

I love listen to this track through headphones as I go for walks. I picture the narrators story as I explore my city, and try to see the places I’ve walked through hundreds of times with fresh eyes, trying to notice the hidden and forgotten.

Go and listen to Here, Hear series to fall in love with the blend of brilliant music and literature.

Joseph James