REVIEW: Tarwater, Animals, Suns & Atoms (Mute)
- Chris Hill
Electronically viscous and fluidly organic, Tarwater's follow-up to 1998's critically embraced Silur is a living work of art, its lungs expanding in slow, dubby inhalations, and its heart pulsing with sure, unhurried passion. The German duo of Bernd Jestram and Ronald Lippok (also a member of the splendid To Rococo Rot) have created eleven cuts that move with delicate, sensual grace from the initial landing beacon of "K.R.?.L.E.G." to the carnival music enchantment of "Seven Ways to Fake A Perfect Skin".
Thanks to Lippok's poised spoken-vocal cadence, there's the air of an artist strolling among his audience, commenting on the surroundings with both an insider's jaded nature and an outsider's wonder. Lippok saturates "The Trees" with Druidic magic and an unnerving observation that "The forest knows how to confess/you should hear the trees/It wasn't me you hear/only furniture lives here". He then rewards the listener with a tersely delivered admonition, "don't/ever/antagonize/the home!". Guitar loops tangle branches with multiple synth rhythms to create leafy spring lushness, while the mystical presence is intensified by layered vocals chanting indecipherably on top of each other. Spotting a breadcrumb trail left in the shadowy woods, there's an eerie sample that resembles the approaching Id beast from "Forbidden Planet".
Moving on to "At Low Frequency", lines like "Man is the most adaptable machine in the universe", delivered with Lippok's Germanic Lou Reed aplomb, sound like shamanic wisdom. Backed by notes that come in bell curves, smoothly rising and falling from center points, the song eventually wanders into David Lynch territory: "'Have you any questions before we return to the lounge?'/I could think of none, and shook my head". Continuing the Lynchian oddities later, Lippok adds a distorted Munchkin mimic vocal double to his natural, laconic vox on the dub-soaked "Early Risers", making the song an unusual standout.
"Noon" challenges the yang energy of the album by adding Justine Electra's singing and speaking vocals. Her voice, also charged with Lippok's reserved patience, augments the singer wonderfully. A looped piano riff plays against a repetitious snare, before the song dissolves into hand-slapped tablas and an insistent sitar. The sitar, appearing just on this track, is one example of the creative risks Tarwater takes in establishing an overall presence without lapsing into predictability.
The instrumentals are peppered throughout. "Dauphin Sun" begins with languorous, foggy synths and a wandering guitar. A spectral vocal presence emerges to envelop the listener, until it gradually and unwillingly dissipates. "Babyuniverse" moves along with impressive stature, a scraped woodblock rubbing against majestic marching synths, for a brief, three-minute glimpse into the unknown. The playful "Song of the Moth", the gentle, oceanic "Somewhere", and the opener "K.R.?.L.E.G." complete the roster of instrumentals.
As Lippok sings on "All of the Ants Left Paris", "Come starset, we sounded all right". Why wait that long to find out for yourself? http://www.mute.com for U.S. label info, and http://www.kitty-yo.de for their European web home.
