I am not entirely sure that any aspect of this electro-crash mutant punk album makes any sense at all. But then, I’m not entirely sure that the concept of ‘sense’ isn’t often a tad overrated (the duckbilled platypus, for example, is a far-from-sensible beast, but it quite clearly rules the entire educational system, to say nothing of the school), and so I’m not going to let the utter incomprehensibility of much of Concrete Igloo prevent me thoroughly enjoying listening to it.
Lyrically, Concrete Igloo is a mishmash of somewhat distorted biblical references (“Pluck it out… I see sin through my eyelids”); political ravings, tales of finding the face of the Virgin Mary on a deflated balloon; Einsteinbrains (alloneword, mark you); and tales of people who’re compelled to remove their own limbs. A varied and somewhat deranged set of subject matter, then, and one which surely requires a varied and somewhat deranged melodic setting.
‘Tis fortunate, then, that that’s exactly what Dandi Wind** have provided. How convenient! What on earth would I’ve started that paragraph with if they hadn’t had the music to go with the subject matter? What a lucky coincidence!
Anyway. Music. Dandi Wind quite often sound like an industrial accidentally-on-purpose, and quite often sound like a disco in a madhouse. Tribal beats of the threatening, stalk-you-through-the-jungle kind rather than the ‘get stoned and watch parrots’ kind; hissing synths and fragmented cut-‘n’-paste tunes; a slight feeling of rave subverted by jerky rhythms and weird vocal gymnastics; machine gun noises; odd dashes of melancholy… Basically, it’s energetic, confrontational and bizarre electronic noise with a strong vein of inventive humour and a breathless speediness to its rhythms. And you can dance to it, too. Exceedingly fine genre-trashing insanity.
-
7's Score