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New Gate LP, reviewed at Volcanic Tongue:
Gate
Moths
Dilettante Courtoisie DC-02
£18.99
Massive new album from Michael Morley of The Dead C’s solo Gate project, here given an ass-blasting three guitar makeover: Moths sees Morley joined by Sara Stephenson of NZ droners Doramaar and Nina Canal of NY No Wave unit Ut, presenting an extended investigation into the collapsing universe sound of the more endlessly focussed Gate/Dead C/Wreck Small Speakers jams, with the sound of amp hiss over slow-nodding minor chord descensions and the kind of organisational logic that is truly out-of-focus. There’s something almost orchestral in the way the guitar tones are smudged into cotton wool arcs of electricity, with peaking, overarching melodies more implied than stated, especially in the way that Morley threads subtly epic bass lines into the background, repeating amazing downer crescendos that just kind of hang in the air and vibrate. Morley’s vocal are even more dilated and narcoleptic than usual, sounding like he’s singing just off mic, exhaling slowly into the mass of the three guitars, and the feeling is oddly euphoric, like a slow motion vertical ascent or your favourite rock song being gradually pulled apart in three different directions. As with all of the Gate recordings there’s an understated melancholy to the proceedings and in a way this is the most epic album from Gate to date, forsaking previous experiments in electronica and short song forms for long, endlessly unravelling jams that are smudged to the point of hallucinatory epiphany. Somehow unmistakably a Michael Morley work while simultaneously exceeding anything he has done before, this is the weirdest, greatest, most cryptic extension of his rock/jam logic to date. It’s an album that reveals more with every listening and that makes demands that most records wouldn’t even know how to articulate.
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