Not to be confused with the Jeremy Peyton Jones ensemble of the same name, Portland, Oregon’s Regular Music make liquid synth music of the kind we’ve heard rather a lot of recently. The Work is one of the first 3” CDr’s in the newly minted Limited series from Under The Spire (along with Dozens’ Curving Quest and Lunar Miasma’s Passage To The Unknown) and I’ve got to admit to my heart sinking a little as familiar globular synth twinkles opened ’1′. Ah, it’s another one of these…
But then, to my surprise and delight, Regular Music totally turn it around. The introduction of guitar, drums and a swooping low zoom gives ’1′ an edge of the kind so many synth molesters these days apparently deem unnecessary. Well not so, because there’s an elusive pulse to this that provokes a sort of subliminal head-nod in the listener. It’s not in the drums – they remain relatively static – but somewhere deep within the constant looping of elements. They create a labyrinthine mesh of layers, each one forcing its neighbour forwards and even having the gall to break down into a spontaneous round of applause halfway through when the track reaches its glorious zenith.
Essentially an improvised jam broken into 3 segments, The Work uses ’2′ as a subdued, murky cooling-off period before kicking back in with ’3′. Although it never quite reaches the multi-faceted heights of the opening track, ’3′ does crank up the pace again. It has a similarly fluid gloop to the music on Jürgen Müller’s The Science Of The Sea, like a submarine slowly gliding through silty waters, its lights searching the cracks and crevices for new forms of life.
Under The Spire / Under The Spire Limited
