NOLE
PLASTIQUE - escaperhead
(CD,
nexsound)
One of my earliest musical relevatory
experiences was purchasing a 3-Lp-Box called “The Psychedelic Years” on
a whim I still can’t explain, because I was actually too young for such an
interest, especially in the late Eighties and that purchase was honestly
over my budget back then. But it made me see lines and connections in
musical development and there is not a single track on there that is bad and
at least two thirds started me off in searching and exploring. And from all
the Buffalo Springfield, “White Bird”, Procul Harum, “SF Sorrow is
born” and Love it is a straight line through three decades worth of
mangling and manipulating to “Escaperhead” by Ukranian avantgardists
Nole Plastique. Now maybe I have been spoiled in early teenagehood by “the
Psychedelic Years” but I hear the echoes and bitparts of songs and
emotions of the late Sixties in every song on “escaperhead”.
The interesting things are those that Nole
Plastique left out, by circumlocuting basic songstructures, avoiding kitsch
and working distorting effects into the single tracks, which, by the way,
mostly flow into one another like stoned out trip through a second hand
rarity records store. The fall onto a nice, laidback, “trippy” melody
here and there, bang a little on the bongos, let all instruments fall into
place at the right time in the right speed, to make you happy and feel
light. Ease and beauty, just the way life should be. But the structural
fundament of the mix makes for an interesting counterpart by destroying the
harmony, by rippling through the mellowness like the evil tide of an
undercurrent makes a perfect beach unfit for enjoying. It is nevertheless
all songs, or treated as such, and that makes for another level of
interesting structural theory all together.
Putting the alternatives not taken into the
focus makes for a lot of interesting if-clause introspections. If Nole
Plastique were settled at the West coast of the USA then they’d probably
be mixed into the freak folk scene and would have released on Paw Tracks,
but then they would be all washy and diffuse and the clear and crystal
elements of their music would be missing. If they had a lot of money to
spend on recording and were keen on exploring a melody to its end then they
would probably be the next Flaming Lips, but then again those lose ends and
ideas and melodies only hinted at are a fascinating part of their mix. Like
the backwards vocals on “…rolled in slice” or the bongos I heard
somehwere and the birdsounds I heard somehwere else. Atmospherically this is
like Fennesz “Endless Summer” album time travelled thirty five years
backwards to inspire Brian Wilson as he was stoned out somewhere on a beach
fusing the vibe of certain damaged melodies.
