#271 Yellow Swans - Going Places

Also got good buzz on the end of year lists.

Speaking of buzz, you got it. Some of the electronic albums I've heard over the last 270 albums have evoked movement through space, like there is a humming, repeating place that doesn't change, and that the progressions you hear in your headphones are occuring via your movement through different places in that space. Here, the feel is more narrative, like you are standing still while the situation evolves around you.

There's a theme of clausterphobia and unease here. The ambient crackles are ever-varied and ever-present, while huge, overloaded sounds rise and fall. The song titles talk about Limited Space, trying to Opt Out, being Foiled, and even the last two tracks' promise of a New Life or Going Places seem desperate. There is a sense of being surrounded and in unknown peril, from the industrial revolt of Limited Space, to the metal cyclone of Foiled, to the waking gargantuans of Going Places. Throughout there is recurring dull throb that reads more as your own heartbeat than the song's beat, a recurring noise like roaring crowds that implies anarchy through blood-pulsed ears.

Do I like it? Its evocative. The noise is aggressive, but generally listenable, more shoegaze than glitch, more Aphex Twin ambient than Aphex Twin drill-and-bass. Its not a pleasant listen, but its not too unpleasant, and its interesting. But it falls, like so many electronic albums I've heard over the last year, into a kind of anonymous space, crowded by other albums vying for my ears the rare occasion they want something like this. An interesting encounter, not likely to revisit much 3/5