Staff Reviews

Doldrums - Lesser Evil

Review by Jazz Monroe

Impresses but never quite thrills.»

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doldrums is the project of airick woodhead, a toronto native living on the road. his first full length 'lesser evil', comes after many years of acclaimed eps, performance, and forward thinking video art. doldrums' sound is largely influenced by his transient lifestyle, drawing equal parts from european dancefloors and the noise music communities in montreal, toronto, new york and baltimore. in these lofts he has temporarily made his home, learning that "you need to be able to adapt to any setting; a dance club, a rock band, a kitchen, an art gallery, you can't rely on anybody else and you do your best to fill as much of the experience with what you have and you fill the rest with pure energy until it's overflowing." 'lesser evil' was made between july 2011 and may 2012 on a borrowed macbook with half the screen glitched out, an apt representation of the threshold at which technology is used hard enough that it breaks down completely, which the same brink that this music arises from. the cover art for 'lesser evil' is simply a photograph of his broken laptop screen. while earlier doldrums releases have been constructed from blatant samples of anything from 60s girl groups and bollywood psychedelia to dial up modems and feedback, 'lesser evil' is woven together from a more focused pallet of sounds from warped vocals and analogue electronic gear. live, airick is joined by live percussion and vocals, and has toured extensively with the canadian diy scene that has evolved around arbutus including grimes, purity ring, and austra.
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