Only one side in and I’ve already got the old typewriter out and my fingers are flying next to my spirit being, miles high, bobbing along a drifty hypno-trick by Lake Daggers, who is Wyatt Montgomery Worcel. That’s the first time I’ve ever read that name or typed it down, and it looks like he’s only got one other thing available so far (a forthcoming split?), so if it’s new to me, maybe it’s new to you too? What’s not totally new to me is hearing another noise-guy answering the call of the tasty-beat-maker draught the hip-hop scene may or may not be struggling with (I guess I can’t really say for certain, alls I know is that I’m not really listening to the modern hip-hop scene, but I very much am getting my beat-kicks out on these weird-ass cassette tapes). Don’t mean to pin Worcel here down with that “noise-guy” platitude either, but I hear it with the TERRODOME guys, Charlatan to an extent, Paw Paw, Potions out in Chicago… artists seemingly looking for (and finding) new ways to get your head-nod on that start with a mesmeric ambient cradle of buzzy background synths or droning drawls of guitar strings, and lets the grooves carve their way in nice and easy. In the case of Transient here, Worcel’s version of this fuzes a buzzing, ever-present radiance of ecstatic color with a nice array of percussive textures built into balanced grooves. With silvery guitar melodies that swirl like liquid mercury driving it along, it’s the kind of thing that at times makes perfect sense as a strait zoner, at others pure dance-floor fodder, and very often it’s both at the same time (this tape’s real sweet spot). A prime cut of meditation meat to chew on.
More about: Lake Daggers
