I'm a hip guy. Can you smell the hipness? I say things, in my best hick voice, like, "Awww yeah, I like that experimental music. You know...Merzbow...Sonic Youth." But truth be told, I've always had a soft spot for melody. Blame my mom for playing all that Neil Diamond/Carpenters/ABBA 70's schlock. Blame my dad for having a soft spot for Paul Simon. Blame the radio, my truest and deepest friend from ages 10-17. Anyway, there's great experimental stuff all over the cyber-diaspora of the Houdini Mansions label. They're based out of Easley, South Carolina (Easley is easily the closest decent-sized town to Greenville, which is home to the closest minor league baseball affiliate of my beloved Boston Red Sox, G'ville being a 1 1/2 hour drive from my driveway).
House of Cake is as much a collage as a compilation. It bleeps and bloops and drones in all the right places, and in all the wrong places which also happen to be right--don't you know how the universe is chaos and yummy in your (quan)tummy?
But the emotional high point for me is the sweet simple three-note descending bass-tone on track four, which I'm 99.4% sure is titled "Sugar Boys." The vocal melody goes up as the bass melody goes down, and the result is one of those weightless free-floating moments that isn't a million miles away from Dancing Queen. Because the universe also knows how to repeat, and coalesce, and spin slowly enough for you to observe its beauty with wonder and awe.
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