« still alive and lazy | Main | their archrivals are the perennials »
September 19, 2006
my mattress: doorknobs and pine straw (subtitled: another year with the IRAs)
Some conditionals: if the beginning of this song were a simple physical object, it would be something that effects a kind of painful cleansing, like one of those industrial-grade water piks that dentists use; or maybe if it were a game, it would be a hellishly complex real-life version of Tetris, with wrong, heavy blocks falling from the sky, pummeling the earth, piling up into a massive, structurally unsound tower of unlikely and inexplicable aesthetic appeal. It's the exaggerated stutter of the guitars, the inhuman combustion of the drumbeats, and the sweet static of the drones (always unfurling in the background) that give this song such a kick (it shocks like a defibrillator).
Then, about 2:25 into it, everything slows down. Stretches out. Those drones (which were mostly scenery before) take over. The guitars stop producing those thick, abrasive chords, and narrowly focus on individual notes, while everything else bubbles and boils underneath. An organ peeks through, gently, timidly. The climax comes right at the end (appropriately), the spotlight shining on one disintegrating guitar.
Kill (whose website should be avoided by epileptics) don't create stand-alone songs, but are more into making aggressive conjunctions of visual effects and music (check out some awesome videos here, especially that second snippet), and are (reportedly) at some point going to release a DVD. The band contains members of Jaga Jazzist, Jr Ewing, Single Unit, etc. and the band name is sometimes spelled with 2 'L's, sometimes with 3. I would love to see them play live, but looks like they're pretty much just staying in Norway for the time being.
Posted by Kevin at September 19, 2006 12:11 AM