infantjoy return with a new album.
well, sort of.
as with paul morleys previous music industry experiment, ztt records, things are never that simple when paul is involved.
you see, the bands debut album, where the night goes, ended up being one of my favourite late night working soundtracks with its delicate erik satie piano melodies and undercurrents of modern studio ambience. unfortunately, the major label, upon which the album was released, didn’t really know what to do with this piece of music and art and so the album literally vanished into thin air. so prior to infantjoy re-releasing the album on their own serviceav label, they are releasing an album comprising of revised versions (oh go on then, let’s call them remixes), and a few new tracks thrown in for good measure, and calling the result – with.
alongside paul and james banbury are other people involved with (geddit?) the band.
names such as isan, mark lodge, handshake, someone, populous, and even folktronica heroes tuung pop up across the albums 12 tracks.
where the original album was open and warm and gave the listener a warm all encompassing glow, this time around there are ominous beats, subsonic pulsations and a air of . for example, leaving somewhere with someone opens the scene with some serious woofer threatening booms making it a perfect instrumental companion piece to anything off massive attacks mezzanine.
composure (with isan) revives the central focus of the piano, but adds some delightful electronica noises around the place. as is often the case, remix albums are often incomplete affairs, where there is little to connect the tracks together, making for a disjointed album. thankfully, infantjoy have managed to make sure that for all the sonic playfulness involved, the 12 tracks have a cohesive sound and feel. though the tranced up dub of exposure (with lodge) strays a little too close to some old school planet dog era ambient-trance, which may make some people recoil in flashback horror, or like me, you may just grin and do a little dance. the choice is all yours.
as well as these archived easy on the ear sonics, are chunks of paranoia rich static infused electronica, whether in the short pieces called, blosson on a stem, someone with handshake or the unsettling nature of a haunted space.
again, the centrepiece is the cover version of japans ghost, featuring sarah nixey (solo album on its way soon folks!). the track has been dabbled with by populous and is still very special, as the tinkerers haven’t really meddled too much with the core element of the song, ie sarahs vocals, its calming power is still as delicious as before, but with added scary sci-fi noises to add even more drama to the abrupt ending.
one of the concerns i had over the original album was the issue as to what exactly did paul actually do. especially as there were very few vocals, this time around such concerns are laid to rest. his voice is all over the place during the disorientating absence. and not in a weird distorted manner, but in a straightforward spoken piece. not that i understand a word he is on about of course.
and so the album continues until we get to the finale, arrival (here here) with tuunng, where the band apply their tradmarked scratchy guitars and weird samples to the proceedings closing the album with a fantastic marriage of weirdness and beauty.
to conclude, with allows us to be entralled and excited that we live in an era when music making is now open to the many rather than the few, and the exclusivity of the fairlight cmi is a long lost memory, so that modern forward thinking albums like this deny the need for expensive studios, over the top sleeve art, and large record label budgets.
basically, with is an album that is both a statement of art, and a fascinating combination of modern machine noise.
out on service av.
more detail : here