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Instant Night
Instant Night in Bloomington, MN
Current price: $33.99
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With the release of their 2015 album
Describes Things as They Are
, Washington D.C.'s
Beauty Pill
began a second act that took them from the already unconventional angles they approached post-punk with during their early days into new and uncategorizable forms of musical shape-shifting. Based around the songs of
Chad Clark
,
's output from that album on has infused quick-changing song structures with complex electronic production, soundtrack elements, and arrangements that threw unexpected moments of brass and symphonic woodwind at listeners one moment and jarring samples at them the next. The four-song EP
Instant Night
continues the experimentation the band were immersed in on
Please Advise
, another EP released just about a year prior. The title track is striking in its lack of drums or programmed rhythms, opting instead to underscore singer
Erin Nelson
's steady vocals with fluttering electronics, neo-classical woodwinds and strings. The song's lyrics hang somewhere between paranoid dystopian imagery and a straightforward depiction of life in the age of social media, dating apps, accelerated climate change, and an ongoing global pandemic. The absence of drums pushing the song forward emphasizes the tension between the electronic and acoustic instruments, and adds to the track's ominous but somehow beautiful tone. "You Need a Better Mind" is built around
Clark
's experiments with a Roland TB-303, a bass line synthesizer originally introduced in 1981 whose rubbery sounds went on to define various subgenres of electronic music. In addition to a bombastic mix of programmed drum patterns and live drumming, blasting horn sections, a chorus of backing vocals, and an array of other incidental sounds all follow the same maxed-out, claustrophobic arrangement style
have been exploring since 2015. The other two tracks are a short instrumental piece and an even more turbulent remix of "You Need a Better Mind." In this way,
functions more like a single than an EP, with two songs strong enough to be A-sides fleshed out with supplemental material from the same sessions. Even in its brevity,
continues
's consistent push into new waters, this time showing similar levels of intensity in both their busiest and most pared-down moments. ~ Fred Thomas
Describes Things as They Are
, Washington D.C.'s
Beauty Pill
began a second act that took them from the already unconventional angles they approached post-punk with during their early days into new and uncategorizable forms of musical shape-shifting. Based around the songs of
Chad Clark
,
's output from that album on has infused quick-changing song structures with complex electronic production, soundtrack elements, and arrangements that threw unexpected moments of brass and symphonic woodwind at listeners one moment and jarring samples at them the next. The four-song EP
Instant Night
continues the experimentation the band were immersed in on
Please Advise
, another EP released just about a year prior. The title track is striking in its lack of drums or programmed rhythms, opting instead to underscore singer
Erin Nelson
's steady vocals with fluttering electronics, neo-classical woodwinds and strings. The song's lyrics hang somewhere between paranoid dystopian imagery and a straightforward depiction of life in the age of social media, dating apps, accelerated climate change, and an ongoing global pandemic. The absence of drums pushing the song forward emphasizes the tension between the electronic and acoustic instruments, and adds to the track's ominous but somehow beautiful tone. "You Need a Better Mind" is built around
Clark
's experiments with a Roland TB-303, a bass line synthesizer originally introduced in 1981 whose rubbery sounds went on to define various subgenres of electronic music. In addition to a bombastic mix of programmed drum patterns and live drumming, blasting horn sections, a chorus of backing vocals, and an array of other incidental sounds all follow the same maxed-out, claustrophobic arrangement style
have been exploring since 2015. The other two tracks are a short instrumental piece and an even more turbulent remix of "You Need a Better Mind." In this way,
functions more like a single than an EP, with two songs strong enough to be A-sides fleshed out with supplemental material from the same sessions. Even in its brevity,
continues
's consistent push into new waters, this time showing similar levels of intensity in both their busiest and most pared-down moments. ~ Fred Thomas
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