Memorial Waterslides＜限定盤/Colored Vinyl＞

After making a splash with their work on a pair of acclaimed soundtracks, Verity Susman and Matthew Simms decided to form MEMORIALS. Their debut album pulls together multiple strands of music that range from free jazz to psychedelia, shoegaze to ambient, with underlying post-rock and indie rock sounds the duo honed in previous groups. Susman was the guiding force behind the perennially underrated band Electrelane, while Simms released several fine albums with It Hugs Back and has been a longtime member of Wire. Memorial Waterslides is a seamless amalgamation of all the sounds they have utilized in the past, all the genres they have explored, and all the instruments they have learned to play with great skill. If that makes it seem like the record is some kind of academic pursuit or an audition tape designed to gain the duo further soundtrack work, one could look at it that way. Of course, that would mean overlooking the heaping dollops of melody they apply to their perfect arrangements as well as the emotion that seeps out like a bubbling stream of haunted melancholy. Indeed, this is no joyful romp in the summer sun, more of a deep think undertaken while the wintery wind thumps against the windows and the candles flicker in the darkening night. Tracks like "Name Me" and "I Have Been Alive" are majestic and mighty, positioning Susmans tender vocals against waves of thundering drums, honking saxes, and horror movie organs; the title track is a doomy mix of avant-garde soundtrack noises and overdriven noise rock that is downright scary; and "Book Stall" creeps along slickly like Broadcast, only with an oozing dread and a sinking feeling that the tape the song was recorded on is slowly disintegrating. Even the tracks that have a little more positive energy driving them forward -- like the album-opening "Acceptable Experience," which has a nice Stereolab feel -- have darkness lurking just behind the curtains. On that song, its made manifest by the ripping guitar solos; on others, its the looped found sounds ("Lamplighter"), out-of-nowhere steampunk breakbeats ("Cut It Like a Diamond"), or glitchy shards of sax and vocals ("False Landing"). Its clear that the pair have immense skills as crafters of ambience and setters of mood; they are also wizard-level good at weaving kaleidoscopic strands of influences together into a brilliant, fascinating fabric. The result is the kind of record thats almost impossible to stop listening to once one begins. It flows together so perfectly, and the mood is so tense and unbroken, that it feels wrong to be diverted in any way. Susman and Simms definitely have an assured career in soundtracks, and judging by Memorial Waterslides, they will have a long run as one of the most impressive practitioners of the cinema psych genre. ~ Tim Sendra