https://soundcloud.com/trensmat/sets...ellings-druss/
Sampler of the forthcoming GNOD LP on Trensmat Records.Available now for pre-order.
www.trensmat.com/tr034.html
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After last darkening the Trensmat towels mere months ago with their fuzz'n'dub 7" '5th Sun', Gnod have decided to head for the heavens via a strikingly different path, the ludicrously cosmic Dwellings & Druss LP. Though this time round ditching geetars for keytars, they retain their trademark murk and keep the edges blurred.
Opener and scene-setter 'Revelation 9' shows the band are capable of admirable restraint and subtlety when their more traditional musical weapons are confiscated. Sounding like an eerily authentic early 70s German experiment, it bubbles slightly threateningly without ever actually revealing the nature of the revelation in question.
'20 Sides A Minute' sounds at first like they mistakenly sped up the bubbling of the previous track until, shock, a steady kick is introduced, followed by sharply sinister synth stabbings, scything a permanently panning path through the rusty and weather-beaten drum machine junk shop. Disco for robots left out in the rain.
The B-Side is home to the mammoth 16-minute 'Defeatism' - something of a misnomer as it certainly has the highest positive-vibe content of the EP - with it's proto-Detroit atmos/groove it's positively euphoric. It's also negatively euphoric in the more subby parts but the Gnodpod always pulls itself out of the black hole just in time. Frantic morse code messages are beamed back to the mothership, tapped out furiously across a selection of chiming synths, 303, high-end percussion and low-end wobbles, giving much of the episodic track the feel of an interminable heavily-pregnant rush, constantly teasing you with the promise of a cheesy drop that mercifully never comes.
Don't let the consistent lo-fi feel of the threesome fool ya though - as is so often not the way with lazy hazy hat-tipping to the forefathers of electronics, this spacebound 12" has it's own identity and supplies BASS in buttock-clenching quantities, particularly the analogue tremors felt halfway through the epic flipside.
Nervous nano-Gnodness for a rave new world.
Buyers also get additional extras - digital copies of each track featured on the vinyl plus an exclusive 50 minute livset ("In Orbit") recorded in November 2012. Only the buyers of the vinyl will get the digital version of the 12" & extras, it will not be available otherwise.
Dwellings, Revelation 9 (3:57)
Druss, 20 Sides A Minute (8:50)
Dwellings, Defeatism (16:21)
In Orbit (49:49)