Thee Moths - Glytchvolk Musique Concrete

by Tom Mendelsohn

Not to be mistaken for The Moths.

"Thee Moths, bless them, seem to have, for the greater part, avoided wanky. Instead, they have a lot of nice, gentle tunes. They do set these sweet little ditties onto some quite adventurous drum patterns."

A thorny one, this. Releasing a self-proclaimed album of ‘sonic experiments’ comes across as a poor idea to your reviewer, accustomed as he is to such prosaic anachronisms as melodies and choruses. When writing chopped-up folktronica, one has to be jolly careful not to get it wrong. It is very easy to get it wrong. If you get it wrong, your album will sound wanky.

Thee Moths, bless them, seem to have, for the greater part, avoided wanky. Instead, they have a lot of nice, gentle tunes. They do set these sweet little ditties onto some quite adventurous drum patterns, and it takes a while before the listener can understand how they mesh, but eventually they do. The songs still sound strange, but not unbearably so. If you want a point of comparission, listen to Four Tet. Four Tet is superior, but they share styles; convoluted drum loops and broken up melodies. Some of the songs, notably the really rather excellent opening number, feature some superior male-female duetting. These are especially peachy.

But no album is ever improved by having 17 tracks, especially when it is of a genre as niche as this, double especially when its second half is as torpidly experimental as this. The latter seven tracks are as unlistenably ghastly as Squarepusher at his most obtuse. They are quite obviously an after thought – the press release admits as much, though their lily is a little more gilded – and they have no place on what would other be a wholeheartedly recommendable album. Tell you what, do the new-fangled thing and download the first 10 songs (as well as number 15, actually). After that, all will be well.
Thee Alex said on April 24th 2007 [report abuse]

I'll be using the quote 'unlistenably ghastly' in future press releases.

The Author said on April 26th 2007 [report abuse]

Now I feel bad. The artists aren't mean to review your reviews!

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