Yesterday it was sunny. Almost warm, even. It was nice. But today, it’s overcast again. I’m warm in my room, but outside it’s cold; it would be pretty if there was fog, but there isn’t any. You can see forever, but at the horizon, it’s just gray.
But in all this dreariness, there’s the potential for warmth. The trees have lost their leaves, just resting; the birds are on vacation til next year. Waking up early, holding on to the coffee cup to keep your hands warm, having a cigarette and blowing the smoke out the window. The newest offering from Tilburg, Holland’s “Minor Function” pays homage to such forgotten moments that, when it’s all over, have made the whole thing worthwhile. Like the mosaics Gaudi constructed from broken bits of tile, De Tuinen takes all the sounds you threw away and creates something singularly poignant.
Rik Möhlmann’s images pair nicely, slipping in and out of recognizably - are we watching water or snow in the opening scenes, both? It doesn’t matter, it dissolves quickly and beautifully into pure color. The core of the song is a single warped synth chord, a wave that must wash up 100 times over the course of the track but still feels impossible to ever pin down. Gloopy blips and glitchy slomp abound in the ether: vocal gazes, distant memories, bitcrushed percussive slips, untraceable parts combining like ants lifting a thousand times their body weight.
A voice, towards the end: is it intelligible speech? English but backwards? A Sino-Tibetan language, perhaps? Is what you’re hearing recognizable sound, what you’re seeing a recognizable image? Better to avoid such questions. The wave comes in and the wave goes out again, it’s better that way.
Physical copies here, digital here, from the all-killer-no-filler post-everything juggernaut Beer on the Rug.
• De Tuinen: https://soundcloud.com/detuinen
• Beer on the Rug: http://www.beerontherug.com
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