GREG
HEADLY – 24-carat abnormalities
(CD,
28 Angels)
This is the fifth release by Greg Headly that
finds its way into these pages and all of them have been a pleasant
surprise. From the early subtle electronica that ostensibly owed a lot to
Fennesz and friends to the serious modern compositional works of “there comes a violent love /
pulse” Headly has moved himself and his music onwards like an
explorer who has hit the right time in the development of the world to
hasten from one record to the next. (I do believe that the world has to be
ready for discoveries and inventions. Looking at history for instance there
were a few dozen explorers who died in the polar region, and then Amundsen
took all the laurels he could find. Or Newton who seemed to collect them
left and right as he went on.) “24 carat abnormalities” is Headly’s
ninth release all together and the sixth on 28 Angels, and it is after all
just what its title says it is: wonderful abberrations.
As opposed to his work of late structures
don’t grow organically or algorithmically – which after all is basically
the same thing – but shows bulk-like structures, sharp breaks and gaps in
its structures. Where a dynamic used to grow steadily and a flow established
itself, no matter how askew or distorted it might have been, there are now
more steady planes of sound textures that slowly move and are suddenly being
broken off by something else. Moreover a lot of these blocks (for lack of a
better word) seem to be consisting of only two or three layers of sound, and
so tend away from the sparkling microstatic ambience of multilayered
electronica but rather to the massive and stark building blocs of sounds.
But there are moments in between that shine with pristine beauty. When the
string section comes in suddenly with all its glory and elevation right in
the middle of the first song, for instance.
Headly has used the guitar and various
software instruments as his source for waves of choice, and the guitar is
what you get to hear. The crashing soundwaves of “days of my bolshevik
youth” are the distorted, mutated and filtered remnant of what heavy
guitarists refer to as “attack”, the energetic punching rather then
strumming of a single powerchord or string. Badaaam, badaaam, badaaam. You
all know that from the early work of Fear Falls Burning anyway. But then it
slowly, slowly shifts the little blocks of sounds around until the track is
ready to take on some more of these strings and large keyboards muted in the
back. And then in the next track off with some light jazz.
It is hard to tell what or how much is
changing in the world of Greg Headly and he won’t tell. The available
information is clear but short about travels to eastern Europe, and more
extensive but hardly clear on various transitions and changes in his live.
But it is obvious that his music once again is a reflection of his state of
mind, even if cryptic and undecipherable, rather than the more laborious
theoretical approach he favored a year ago (though his reworking of Gustav
Holsts “operations of
the heavens” was one of the finest records of 2006 I remember).
Nor is it possible to make them tell where he is headed to. Another
interesting place, I am sure. “24-carat abnormalities” in some ways
might be Headly’s most obvious and straight to the marrow album up to now,
but therefore maybe also his most directly striking and most intimate music.
