(09.02.06) Robbie Martin’s record is about as easy to parse as its title.
Recording under the name Fluorescent Grey, he distills a vast array of
instruments, sonic events, electronic triggers and pipe rattles into a
series of tracks that are as simply named as the title of the whole
mess, Lying On The Floor Mingling With God in a Tijuana Motel Room
Next Door to a Veterinary Supply Store. Now, me, I like the sort
of rolling chaos that he makes, but it can be a bit difficult to get
into if you’re expecting a clear-cut musical style to persist through
the record. Hell, in the same track even.
Reminiscent of some of the cultural snapshots released on Sublime
Frequencies, Martin mashes Indian ragas, Tibetan drones, Japanese
flute and woodblock, Chinese strings and other equally exotic styles
together into break-beat missives that explode like Kundalini raptures
up and down your spinal column. “Kabuki Drum & Bass” is a taiko drum
remix, a Kodo performance digitally bent back on itself; while “Indian
Classical Beat Sliced and Sauteéd” speeds a raga up until the
notes nearly trip over themselves. “A Peruvian Shaman Sits Down to
Make IDM On His Laptop” is filled with digitized bird call, jaguar
coughs and the groaning undulation of bone sticks rubbed against the
pliable bark of rubber trees — nature sourced and dumped into
ProTools where it is transformed into a claustrophobic tribal dance.
Though, “undanceably” IDM in the end. Naturally.
Elsewhere, Martin deconstructs purely digital concepts, turning “IDM”
on its ear by making it aquatic limbo music (“Liquified
Break-Dancing”) or extended glitch percolations (the ten minute
“Crackly Shell”). Or it is traditional instrumentation that gets the
chop, as in “Study for Live Drums and Piano Quantization (Pompous
Academic Generic Experimental Title).” Reality gets slippery for
Martin as drum beats stutter and piano notes bend and warp. His
subversion of the organic source material makes for digitally awkward
and arresting music. The “Morphing Song” is anchored by a rock-steady
beat but the melodies leer and twist as they are stretched from their
child-like simplicity into dark melancholia and strained despair.
It’s a sonic brain dump, a vomitous mass of noise and rhythm and
appropriated cultural melodies. You either listen to it or you ignore
it; it functions either way. The longer you let Lying On The Floor
Mingling With God in a Tijuana Motel Room Next Door to a Veterinary
Supply Store play, the more you appreciate the cleverness of
Martin’s choice of name. Fluorescent Grey is the un-choice (you know,
neither black nor white) intruding itself upon your consciousness. By
virtue of containing everything, Fluorescent Grey may actually sound
like nothing. It’s a clever trick — being so visibly invisible —
and I find myself continually discovering new facets of this record.
Lying On The Floor Mingling With God in a Tijuana Motel Room Next
Door to a Veterinary Supply Store is out now on Isolate.
Related posts ::
Fluorescent Grey :: Ambiente 2005—2012 (Record Label Records)
Fluorescent Grey :: Antique Electronic / Synthesizer Greats 1955-1984 Pt 1 (Acroplane)
Undacova :: Intrusion (Dyslexic Response / Isolate, CD)
36 :: Fade To Grey / Fade To Grey Reinterpreted (A Strangely Isolated Place)
Sparkle in Grey :: Thursday Evening (Grey Sparkle)
