65daysofstatic

One Time for All Time

Some of the hoodlums on my estate have come up with a new way of causing trouble. The new game is called "Genre Pigeonhole Elitism". I don't have any friends who play the "Pigeonhole Elitism" game. Mainly because as people they're usually shits. But obviously they look good and they're cool, so if you're out for a drink you'll see them surrounded by girls. The music they like is obscure and inaccessible. You have to really have to try to like it. Most of this post- or intelligent- music is pretentious, self-indulgent shit that relies on the fact that if you're cool no one will notice that you've played the same directionless riff for fifteen minutes (twelve quiet: THREE VERY LOUD). 65daysofstatic are unquestionably cool, and their music is built from the twin (post-twin?) pillars of uncomfortable glitchy techno and quiet-quiet-quiet-quiet-LOUD-quiet rock. Get this though: they've got songs and attitude. Think Godspeed! remixed by Aphex Twin and you're in a similar ballpark. 65daysofstatic are the post-intelligent band that you don't need to worry if its OK to like.

Put simply: One Time for All Time sounds like the end of the world. A hundred little monkey drummers playing along to different but perfectly syncopated Ed Blackwell albums; feedback and glitches worthy of the greatest electronic terrorists; an orchestra pit full of fallen angels; Thelonious Monk making statements and cogitating with that deadly abstraction Jack Kerouac wrote about in 'New York Scenes', and riffs aplenty which could easily have found their ways onto both Mogwai's Young Team and Faith No More's The Real Thing. It's the soundtrack to Apocalypse Now, if Darron Aronofsky was in charge of a re-make.

Surprisingly for an album entirely made of instrumentals, the music soars and sweeps, the beats stutter and strut, and the guitars swell and squeal as lyrically and expressively as any posing pop-star. 'Drove all night through ghosts' starts as a lonely lament filled with misty intrigue before the tension peaks and the horror is unleashed. ‘Await Rescue' opens with a jaunty bounce before giving way to a sheet of rushing snare and chiming guitar. ‘Mean Low Water' continues in the sinister vein, but the guitars more discordant, the drums less friendly and the bass more unnerving. 'The Big Afraid' does exactly what it says on the tin with the simple juxtaposition of a childish xylophone and disarming guitar strum. It sounds like Fourtet working with The Bad Seeds. Even working within the post-rock template, 'Welcome to the Times' and '65 doesn't understand you' manage to combine glitch, quiet-quiet-LOUD and a level of experimentation as-yet-unused by the post-rock fraternity. There are even time changes and drum solos.

This is only their second album, and yet 65daysofstatic have created a record which manages to be simultaneously credible, accessible and groundbreaking. And it's also available in your local HMV.

Keith Patterson

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