The third album by Montreal-based
experimental
music duo
Hangedup
follows the same pattern as their first two. Cellist
Genevieve Heistek
plays a souped-up instrument that's attached to an
electronic
device that loops and adds feedback and other sonic effects to her playing. (Think
Frippertronics
, only with a bit less structural elegance and a lot more up-yours attitude.) Drummer
Eric Craven
-- formerly of the considerably more sedate
twee popsters
Nerdy Girl
-- bashes his kit with manic abandon most of the time and lays out entirely otherwise, with almost nothing in between. Producer
Efrim Menuck
(
Godspeed You Black Emperor!
) seemingly did little other than turn the machines on,
Steve Albini
fashion, giving the album a muddy, undefined quality that's particularly frustrating on those passages (mostly at the beginnings and ends of songs) when
Heistek
's playing evinces a certain lyricism, but adds to the general tumult on songs like the onomatopoeic
"Klang Klang."
It's rarely pretty, but the soundscapes are often fascinating, for those with a taste for this sort of thing. ~ Stewart Mason