NEDRY – condors
(CD, monotreme)
It has been mentioned quite a
lot here in the last years, out of the necessity of released in this
direction seemingly flowing this way, but the fusion of electronic styles
with more traditional winds of songwriting has brought forth an enormous
territory of exciting and fascinating sounds, songs and music. Therefore it
seems just consequential if the development of electronic music also springs
forth parallel developments in the fused connections to regular pop music
(though the word regular has to be taken with more than just a grain of
salt…) In the last two years dubstep has been hailed as the most exciting
thing in electronic music and now the trio Nedry is the first, to my
experience, to mix elements of dubstep with regular pop. There are other
forms of electronic music as well, it is only in some songs that this
dubstep thing is coming to the fore prominently. “Squid Cat battle” or
“Scattered” for instance has a synthie-bass line worthy of
T.Raumschmiere’s “Monster Truck Driver”. Sometimes you’ll find
youself in the waters chartered out by Depeche Mode, sometimes in the swamps
that Björk has left behind. Not bad at all, but both very far away from
being labeled Dubstep.
Having mentioned Björk, the
second most important thing to mention with Nedry is that the versatile
impressive voice of singer Ayu Okakita really carries the music in its
various directions. Having to endure comparisons to Björk is just something
any young singer will have to cope with these days, if she is willing to
peruse her voice in extreme ways and harmonies, as you’ll experience on
the title track. Sometimes Okakita wails and screams, sometimes she gets all
low and soft, sometimes her voice seems to become ephemeral and drift out of
space. The echoy breathing sounds will also give her comparisons to early
Sinead O’Connor. But then I am sure she will find her unique voice soon
enough, because the groundwork is already all there. Fascinating and
exciting. Drawing the listener close like the Siren’s did to Odysseus, but
there is no need to fill your ears with wax, as everybody knows, when the
morning comes, the dancefloor will light up to expose the leftovers of the
night’s excesses and even the last lost souls will fetch their stuff and
wander home into the dawning morning. And songs from “condors” may have
accompanied them through various parts of the night, from the warming up in
some smaller club to the full tilt rave in any larger London area
alternative disco to the chilling out in the backspace.
The trio of Nedry is completed
by Matt Parker and Chris Amblin who offer the beats and synthies as well as
the guitars that tie their musical vision to the world of alternative rock.
This guitar sometimes wails in a full tilt Jesus and Mary Chain mode,
sometimes adds a twangy sixties beat and sometimes just soft appreggios. In
more than one way, apart from the songwriting it is really the electronic
world that Nedry is drawn to and the guitars are just a different speck on
top. Glitches, noisy ambience, it is all there to keep the listener
entertained. Compared to the mass of introverted sound artists and
electronic experimenters, who like to splice and split their laptop
generated to the most miniscule layers and then work them over with the
utmost attention to detail – as we have reviewed them heavily in the past
and probably will in the future – the electronic fundamentals laid down on
“condors” seem more mono-directional and straight forward. Not at all
pre-set, but more directed towards working intrinsically. And it does works,
very well it has to be said. If everything works the way it should, we
should be getting a lot more by this trio in the future.
