PEEKAY TAYLOH
Sofa O.D.
CD, poeta negra
If it sounds like drum’n’bass, then that’s what it is, a
drum’n’bass-record. Well, “Sofa O.D.” is a lot more than just that.
The paraphrasing of an old Kris Kristofferson-saying doesn’t hold true
anymore as soon as electronic music opened the floodgates to multi-layered
homeproduction opportunities. (Though it’s original meaning is still as
true as ever.) This record has to offer much more than just one
interpretation, or it wouldn’t be featured in here. After all, the main
reason for these pages is my determinated will to disclose the fine threads
of modern progressive music (in the best sense of the word) and then to
combine them again into one single resume.
Moreover, I allow myself such a blatant paraphrasing, because Peekay
Tayloh does it to himself as well. He is obviously fond of rhymes, idioms
and the rearranging of sense-bits, or at least he keeps playing with them
all through this record. From track titles such as “New Fear’s Eve” to
“Theme of H(a)unting” onwards, he plays with bitparts and knick-knacks;
a vast collection of sounds and samples of various sizes, and takes his time
putting them together, finding new connections or disconnections, breaking
down and building up. The whole process of structuring a musical track is
laid bare at times, as in the multi-faceted “The Hole You Are Inn” –
another title that relies on the spoken word to open up a vast array of
possible meanings. At other times some of the tracks sound like one solid
piece of electronic music that has been worked on indefinitely to sharpen
and polish it into the impressive piece of shining music it has become. Most
astonishingly, the same instance of music might one day be received as the
first kind and the next day as the latter kind, all depending on the
receptional situation you find yourself in. Until finally, you start to
wonder, if what you are listening to is cleverly and minisculey put together
or just lucky freeform surfing through P. Kakaroglou’s database of
soundfiles.
The main core in the production seems to be the drum-sounds, hence the
opening remark. Most of the time the drums are an openly realistic
emulation, structured of tiny bits, various rolls and breaks, added
percussions, forming the whole Drum’n’Bass-mainframe of “Sofa O.D.”
At other times, the drums sound so synthetically that it is hard to imagine
anyone using those sounds ever since the 1980’s. On top of that all,
Tayloh has no barriers to break the drum-tracks down any minute and twist
them around into something completely different. From wild, urban breaks to
laid-back, reserved rhythms to echoing cymbals and trashed toms within one
bridging sample, that’s no rare instance. If it seems fitting, he might
use the most clichéd drumroll as well as carefully constructed drumloops
with digital splinters in their backs. It is all open, all roads are free
and the sun will be shining through the window soon. Like a wired backbone
or the bucking spine of a killer whale, the drum tracks open the field for
the textures, offering a hard ride indeed.
But those textures pull it all down softly. No matter how hard the drums
are broken or beaten, the soothing atmospheres heal any wound. To the hectic
zigzagging of the various forms of drums and percussions, these textural
sounds are of almost meditative quality, droning and breathing slowly.
“Quit your job, kill your boss” being the only track to offer some kind
of vocals – a split-up, deconstructed rapping on the one hand and
harmonious, panelled singing on the other hand – is the perfect example of
the focus on sounds as a whole rather than the traditional recording process
of adding one track to the next. Some keyboard-loops taken for themselves,
out of the context of this record, would dab deeply into the realm of New
Age – and just tipping your finger in is already way too deep in my
opinion – while others obviously consist of a multitude of parts from
different sources, spliced together like a mosaic. The contrast between the
two main strands of Tayloh’s music makes up the main part of the
fascination and radiation the music emanates.
All through the record, the music never sounds thick or ostentatively
complex – like so much “intellectual” electronic music – but remains
an air of lightness and ease, usually associated with urban metropoles of
south-European holiday centres. (Or is that association actually the other
way around, connecting the lightness and ease of holiday to the urban
centres and the music…?), that even tracks that start with eerie and
spooky sounds, whooshing winds and screeching chimes, rustling of trees and
breaking of class, to stay on the organic side of sampling, sooner or later
turn into warmly enjoyable music. So, you can either wrap yourself into
these sounds like a blanket or start to dissect the tracks with a tiny
microscope, both will be a pleasurable experience.
