Reviews 302: Georgia
Georgia, the duo of Brian Close and Justin Tripp, are seemingly at the height of their powers, having already graced 2019 with two incredible works: the mutant future rhythms and splattered fractal psychedelics of Time, released through Firecracker Recordings, and the more bucolic mysticisms, new age atmospherics, and ethno-jazz spiritualisms of Immute on Ekster (though this album is not without its own sharp corners, featuring as it does a spectacular devolution into chaotic bass music). And in a refusal to slow down, Tripp and Close have now released Side Tracks on Métron Records. As told on the label’s Bandcamp, the album finds its genesis in sample banks recorded independently by the two artists…audial snapshots ranging from ”field recordings of roosters in New Mexico to sculpted synthetic sounds,” which were then shared, manipulated, and layered into a pair of immersive and surreal sonic environments each occupying a full side of tape, with the B-side featuring a heady voice performance from multi-disciplinary artist Tauba Auerbach. As ever with Georgia, the visual aspects of Side Tracks are as arresting as the sounds, with illustrations from New York artist Gravé mesmerically layered across all facets of the cassette, obi, and case…an expressive, enigmatic, and multi-dimensional landscape echoing well the music’s abstracted fourth world textures and dream logic mutations.
Georgia - Side Tracks (Métron Records, 2019) The A-side is given over to “Hassan”…a cubist jungle constantly in flux and blown through by granulated currents of white noise. Synthesizers quiver on the verge of orgasm and virtual string plucks generate abstracted elevator musak, with everything anchored by pads that wash in like ocean waves before fading into sudden silence. Insect mating calls proceed within breaths of static as the mind is circled around by outer-dimensional typewriter fx and cyborg approximations of doorbells and windchimes. New age starlight smears into an impressionist blur, glass-toned fusion pads squiggle through exotica patterns, and watery jazz spiritualisms flutter like clouds while bass pulses swell beneath a rain of gemstones. Mermaids sing deep sea lullabies awash in child-like curiosity and play harps constructed from spaceage crystals, with each string pluck creating ocean motion flutters. There are momentary flashes into silence and each time, as the track resumes, it has evolved into something stranger, with Tripp and Close increasingly favoring polyrhythmic harmonies, weird descending note clusters, and maddening sequential multi-layers that seem to fall over themselves. Diamond-toned melodies waver like a psychotropic mirage above flower fields made of emeralds, with abstracted angels singing through spacetime rifts. Elsewhere, we find ourselves afloat on a river made of liquified light, one that flows through hypergeometric rainforest growth, with birds chittering and monkeys laughing. Electronics mimick robotically bowed cellos or tremolo guitar psychedelics, which come together with blissed out chord riffs for some semblance of a floating groove. And near the end, insect wings beat against giant gong-like structures while instruments of glowing stone resonate within cavernous fractal chambers.
On the B-side, “Prime Aire” comes to life on jet engine drones, atonal feedback bursts, and tectonic murmurations. Tones of metal stretch out and sickly drops of liquid hit glass surfaces…their echoes decaying across the spectrum…while pounding reverberations and aquatic contrabass shadows generate a bebop body pulse. Rainbow gases escape from sea-floor vents and then develop into ambient house chord progressions while gongs vibrate amidst the underwater sound layers. Elsewhere, sub-bass liquids reverse in time and slowly evolving polyrhythms sourced from modulating church bells intertwine with temple chants as a three note xylophone arp spreads out across the length of the keyboard. Tauba Auerbach’s anodyne phrases occasional loop…”the energy will make its way through”…all while sampled breaths cycle in time with the dream jazz narcotics. Mermaid voices are pulled towards the sky via UFO tractor beams, conch shell horns bend into currents of darkness, waves of sunlight refract through crystalline blue waters, and glitchy tambourines are sprinkled through the mix until all rhythmic elements vaporize, being eventually replaced by a mutant kick drum. We then find ourselves in some strange stretch of Throbbing Gristle-style darkness, all smeared out industrial psychedelia and cold vocal sexuality. The shadowy atmosphere are countered by warm chord blasts and synthesizers that scat like elephants and as we leave behind the corridors of galactic murk, Close and Tripp return us to their future jazz synth-bass bop and its glowing cloudforms of insterstellar gas. And as Auerbach’s intonations of “slightly hotter / slightly cooler” repeat over oceanic crystal chords and harmonious dissonances, dub delays descend from the sky like a meteor shower.
(images from my personal copy)