1. Tiny Guitar
Starts with a Morris pattern, Thom brings in some shimmering cymbal shots, then a staccato keyboard nails it further. A bass gradually hammers up into audibility and the keys dance over it. At 4m the guitar throws little ideas down, then the bass becomes a greater creative force while the keys keep up the bursts of tipping and tapping. At 6m a pattern emerges, and starts to shift softly into further patterns. At 7:30m a tiny pop song surfaces, to be swiftly swallowed by frantic piano 12 tone frenzies. At 9m a symphonic insistence begins to build, then clears away to dreamy bell tones in tense snatches. Simple melodies clear away a climax, and it dissolves to layers of simple patterns overlapping to form complexity from a multiplicity of pattern snatches. At 12:30m the bass soars up to authority and locks in with Thom’s drums. Then, the classic sound of Morris guitar explodes and stops and explodes again, to join in a crescendo with the bass, up high on the frets. A synth pattern sneaks into the fray. At 15m a rough consensus becomes tighter and tighter, then falls away to a guitar statement of urgency and passion. Jabs of synth pattern help dissolve the cohesiveness of the collective and each instrument slows until the dramatic and seemingly inevitable ending.
2. Pothole Basics
A nursery rhyme start bleeds into space while the bass picks out puzzles and the drums scamper after synth arpeggios. Everyone plays rings around different arpeggiated sounds, growing gradually more high pitched and frantic, weaving in and out of time. By 5m the sounds have settled into a galloping subtlety. We enter an eastern European spy movie soundtrack, and the bass takes off on virtuoso leaps and bounds, soon after joined by the trail of background sounds. At 7m the cohesion is rushed into dispersion by a drum insistence, and the bass keeps pace with the drums. Bell tones chime agreeably behind the drums, until the 9m mark. Mist coalesces into harp-like guitar picking and forest frog synth merging and obscuring everything. Shortly after 10:30 a quiet little pop song emerges from nothing and is developed into more symphonic zones than pop over the next few minutes. The drums start a solemn coda, finished off by a bass variation followed by a formal loop, and a Hollywood change-up ending, strictly for laughs.
3. Paved Pattern
You can almost smell the smoke as Arabian veils reveal tippy tapping drums and spacey infusions of guitar, bass and synth. It reaches a tasty stereo headphone climax, and then the tuned tones start tumbling through the drumscape, pursued by bursts of guitar and mournful bass statements. It gets very spacey. Right before the 4m the guitar rises up to denounce the languid drift, which sloughs away as ever after the guitar has long finished. The drums maintain a formal inversion of the rest of the band, inventing and revising invented patterns as fast as every line. It entertains a frantic little climax around 6m, and then the inventions begin again. Genres shift back and forth and in and out. Things begin to deteriorate and coherence becomes an afterthought unmade. At 9m a guitar outbreak comes up and goes to crazy town on the stereo headphone express, a breathtaking burst of energy. It clears away to flowing synth sounds as the bass takes the melodic intent to something even better. Outer space returns as the veils slide back into place.
4. King’s Ending
Pounding bass, slamming beat, alien discotech, after a couple minutes of this, a climax closes out the slam and Sleet issues in the next groove, announcing itself like a police detective, feet straight on the ground, flat footed. Right before the five it gets good and jungle, then flips up high. Synths abstract the patterns, floating obliviously on into the night, as they say. Nothing is left but basic bass bones, with a skittering Morris stroke coming and going, some synth frequencies melting and winding, and a spare off beat track under it all. 8m it clears the decks for the fat waves of the frozen North, dares to go epic, throbs down to ferocity, and a synth starts jabbing in rudely, the bass starts shaking, while some synth winds around behind it all. 10m in Morris shows off his bitter guitar shake, and the synth jabs it all on up. After the 12 Sleet throws it all back, and the swirls start up to twirling, after which the synth throws 12th grade spitballs a while. In the midst of nothing special, power chords restore the hot discipline of anger and aggression. Before 15, it ends in throbbing plaints. Then the swirling comes back, the guitar wails, and the drums beat up the pace. Everyone stops to listen to synch of the arpeggiator and patches together whatever they can from it. Like a rising storm, Goddard looms out from under the noise, and authoritative notes are bitten off the harsh, distorted guitar. At 19, a tiny swing ebbs off into a charging bass drive surrounded by synth plinks, the guitar hits in spare, the bass goes off everywhere, then a tiny Hollywood synth patch tries to take us all to tinseltown. At 21 and a half it doubles the fun, and it all descends together, honing it down to a sharp, click-tight drone. The ending begins with bass doo-dads all day, cascades of Morris flutter, and drum decay. A small synth noodle falls.
5. Gutter Funk
Starts out steady and serious, with hard angles of abstraction obtruding from the guitar. Complexity leans into the strike of the drums while Morris plays some of his best halting, funk smashing pickings. This keeps a flow going all the way past the 3 minutes mark, and then cuts off. The bass takes off, on a bed of smart beats, and Morris hits back into it hard, while a synth whisper impertinences behind it all. 5 minutes makes the mood settle, the guitar still overall and in every way. It slides down to a soft and proper end.