“Media shy, illbient, anarchist collective” is the press release phrase used to
describe Teargas & Plateglass as an explanation for the lack of concrete details
about the group or the record. This is one of those mysterious platters that you
find on your back doorstep sometime after midnight and, as you stand there in the
doorway, staring out into the night with the warm light of your protective home
hugging you tight, you find yourself listening to the wind in the trees and
wondering just what the hell is out there. Their self-titled debut captures that
sense of unease and dread; they snatch up and squeeze the fear until all the juice
runs out. This liquid is then atomized over the spectre of DJ Spooky and an
Eastern European chamber orchestra conducted by Jocelyn Pook (yes, the woman who
scored Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut).
It’s an orchestral beat record filled with the whispered voices of lost souls and
the multi-cultural echo of vocalists such as Lil Gong, the ladies of Zap Mama,
Natacha Atlas and Oba Funke. It’s a record that slinks down the back alleys of
burned out cities, dragging behind it a sack filled with the looted cultural
relics of the ruined metropolis. Songs like “An Adagio for Tandems Stacked”
and “Borrow the Beloved’s Eyes” are apocalyptic dub chamber music. Natacha Atlas,
who can be normally found fluttering like a piece of silk over the heat of a
Middle Eastern techno beat, sounds like a trapped sparrow on the remix of “Adam’s
Lullaby.” It’s the sort of lullaby that would be sung by a mother at the funeral
of her child and is heartbreaking.
Teargas and Plateglass are not fatalists; what lies behind the beats isn’t a sense
of being crushed by the weight of the world, but a hidden wellspring of strength —
an undying optimism that this weight can be supported. The beats push the tracks
forward, and even as the mood becomes claustrophobic and fraught with moral
decrepitude in tracks like “The Seduction of Canned Laughter,” there is still an
ever present sense of hopefulness — a persistent affirmation that the human
spirit can and will transcend its baser failings. Teargas and Plateglass is a
spooky, creepy, infectious and fascinating soundtrack of the modern world’s moral
decay. It’s a trip.
Teargas and Plateglass is out now on Waxploitation/iMUSIC/:Run Recordings.
