Binker & Moses Album Review: Feeding the Machine
(Gearbox)
BY JORDAN MAINZER
It may be time to strip the “honorary” part of Max Luthert’s “honorary third member” title when it comes to Binker & Moses. For their new album Feeding the Machine, the saxophone and drums duo of Binker Golding and Moses Boyd brought their live partner to the studio to add tape loops and electronics to the ingredient list. The result is a major sonic shift, feeding their improvisations through machines, Luthert’s modular synthesis reordering acoustic tracks and drums in a way that’s so distorted it doesn’t even sound acoustic. From the opening moments of “Asynchronous Intervals”, though you recognize Golding’s saxophone, echoing loops clue you into the sea change. This is different, and it’s here to stay.
In essence, Luthert allows Golding and Boyd to do what they’ve always done well--play with volume and tempo and off of each other, with both dexterity and soul--while amplifying new timbres and moods. Their tracks have always been able to be tempered pieces or instantaneously frenetic, and now they have new dimensions. Luthert’s electronics make chaotic flares and subtle grooves sound like they’re being sucked into cyberspace and spat out back on the urgent “Active-Multiple-Fetish-Overlord”. On epics like “Asynchronous Intervals” and “Accelerometer Overdose”, neither of which would be totally out of place composition-wise on previous albums, they provide undercurrents of mood and nature. At the same time, when Luthert takes a step back, Golding and Boyd seem extra forceful by comparison. Boyd especially stands out with meaty hip hop and funk beats; on “Accelerometer Overdose”, he provides the bed for Golding’s polyrhythmic saxophone, looped and distorted lines that sound like everything from harmonium to funk keyboards. At the end, his pitch-shifted horn cuts in and out like a sneaky housefly that keeps buzzing close to your ears.
The album’s back half is novel in the context of Binker & Moses, especially because they embrace the drone aspects of Luthert’s electronics. “Feed Infinite” is minimal, beginning with a wobbly whirr before Golding and Boyd come in, light as feathers. As the song progresses, Golding is consistently expressive, but not overpowering, while Boyd shows off a funk beat with impressive drum fills, and Luthert adds a synth line that wouldn’t sound out of place on Sound of Silver. Similar dreamy hues kickstart the appropriately titled “After The Machine Settles”. As saxophone and drums glitch and disappear, Golding eventually reenters and overpowers the cut-up electronics, he and Boyd clearing Luther’s hazy spiderwebs of noise. And if Boyd shows off his rock chops throughout, closer “Because Because” is a showcase for Golding, his foreboding faraway tenor crisscrossing with funereal soprano. Boyd’s rustling brushwork gives the song a breezy sway for a while, until Golding’s saxophone multiplies seemingly exponentially. The machine has been fed, but the album ends with someone in the studio shouting, “Yup!” satisfied with their statement of mastery.
