textura

Albums
Vieo Abiungo
Ada
Alias
Anklebiter
Sigbjørn Apeland
Arandel
Black Eagle Child
The Caretaker
Collections Colonies Bees
Colour Kane
Displacer
DJ Phono
Every Silver Lining
Jefferson Friedman
Gus Gus
Robin Guthrie
Helvacioglu & Bandt
Robert Hood
Seth Horvitz
Human Greed
Richard A Ingram
Jóhann Jóhannsson
Marsen Jules
Loscil
Myrmyr
Teruyuki Nobuchika
Now Ensemble
Popol Vuh
Pursuit Grooves
Quasi Dub Development
Rant
Jannick Schou
John Tejada
Tobias.
Trickski
Turtleboy
Yamaoka
Winged Victory For Sullen

Compilations / Mixes
116 & Rising
Our Little Prayers
Craig Richards
Henry Saiz

EPs
Absent Without Leave
Abyss
Simon Bainton
BNJMN
Ceremony
Corrugated Tunnel
Dead Leaf Echo
Go Hiyama
Josco
M.A.D.A. & Plankton
Monseré and Youngs
Semtek
Sharma + Krause
Soundpool
Sparkhouse
Vahagn

DVD
Barbara Lüneburg

Dead Leaf Echo: Verisimilitude
2&1 Records

‘Twas but a half-year ago that Truth entered the world courtesy of Brooklyn outfit Dead Leaf Echo, and while that album's songs are still fresh in memory, a follow-up now appears in the form of remix versions of the earlier album's material. The new release finds three songs by the band (in its current form, singer-guitarist LG, guitarist-keyboardists Ana B. and Christo B., and drummer J. Parker) getting makeovers by RxGibbs, Elika, Mark Van Hoen, and others in a six-track, half-hour EP (100 hand-numbered copies available).

Truth's most memorable song, “Half-Truth,” is the beneficiary of three overhauls, with the lead-off Fryer remix the one most closely hewing to the original, specifically in retaining two of its signatures, the narcoleptic vocal and the rat-a-tat snare pattern. What's new is the rather more electro-fied character that the synthesizer elements add to the song's already potent shoegaze swoon and that help shift the original's focus to synth-laced dreampop. Elika's version is a heavier affair that doesn't dispense with the serenading vocal but undergirds it with a grungy, machine-funk lurch. The Spry! treatment exchanges the original's drum track for a breezier attack whose percussive accents crackle with whiplash-like intensity. RxGibbs' “Falling Away Dub” of “Act of Truth” drenches the dreamscape in an immense, vocal-heavy sea of reverb until a brief breakdown allows the bass line to assert the song's dubby persona. Prodded by a throbbing bass pulse, the DLE treatment lurches at a drugged-out half-speed tempo that brings its trippy vocals and radiant synth flourishes all the more into the spotlight. Mark Van Hoen's “Woolgathering” remix darkens the original's skies with fuzz-toned washes and a slow-motion trip-hop pulse that give the track a shoegaze-from-hell vibe and transform Dead Leaf Echo into something vaguely suggestive of a vampiric, modern-day Tommy James and the Shondells. Though Verisimilitude is, of course, a release designed in part to tide the band's fans over until the next release of original material, it's nevertheless a solid enough collection and re-presentation of the group's sound that's less intended to supplant or compete with Truth than complement it.

August 2011