Ben Garnet aka The Organ Grinder’s Monkey returns with his guitar and palette of creative ideas, mutated by his laptop in all directions.
As the introduction to ‘Take A Step Forward’ jumps between the speakers the multi-layered guitar and staccato bursts of percussion are embraced by an electronic mandolin sound and treated vocal. All a bit lo-fi, but strangely addictive. ‘Up, Down, Left, Right, A-Start’ is an up-tempo twist on an 80s video game soundtrack with retro vocoder voice. A nice synth (or is it guitar?) break ending and a catchy chorus. ‘Falling In Love With A Cartoon Character’ is a strange nightmare indeed, with less electronics and plenty of vocals.
The title track is more mellow, quite soothing but those electronic ‘glitches’ keep invading (of course) to give it an edge. The final song ‘Christopher’ has an atonal marching piano figure behind a nostalgic lyric with a downbeat ending. Lots of keyboard textures here, subtly drawing attention to the words.
Distinctive and bold artwork by Amy Deer complements this welcome new EP, with a sad-looking character emerging from the water, possibly followed by icebergs/bottles/people..? This ambiguity reflecting the music perfectly…
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