Dead Fader (aka John Cohen) is most known for his work on Robot Elephant and the brilliant collaboration with Sensational on the Work It, No EP, joins the Touchin’ Bass roster with the Dosage EP.
“Booze Lair” is a heavy, plodding and dark affair with cathedral organs droning in and out of tune while a skittering white noise arpeggio runs across the stereo spectrum. This is the sound of a very bad head cold that won’t go away. It goes on a bit too long without much change like that night when you realize you’ve drank too much, need to get out yet know sobriety is not coming back any time soon. “Tired” opens with guitar like stands and a faster, adrenaline fueling drum line. There’s a heavy frisson here of hi-frequency activity and malign excitement building up. The track is heavy on bombast but not much development beyond noise. “Dosage” begins at speed with 16th and 32nd note kick drums under metallic clanging like mice running across a 909 in a maze. Distortion follows as does some bass which morph into drones descending in pitch. The track devolves into a distortion fest over the kick drums with little else but some droning organs in its wake. “Easy Sun” is a droning piece of distortion that plods along without drums in a sludgy, phlegmatic manner. The four note melody is often obscured by distorted tones but never quite evolves past its noisy roots.
Dosage ultimately makes a lot of noise while not saying or doing much beyond trying your ears and your patience.
Dosage is available on Touchin’ Bass.
