♫♪  Terlu - The Fig of all Ferns & Celsius

Last week, Terlu released two separate albums on Exo Tapes, The Fig of all Ferns and Celsius (what an overachiever, am I right?). Each, you could say, represent two sides of a coin. Both sides are aged and well travelled, scored and marked by knife cuts, but one’s been turned upwards on the ground, exposed to the sun a bit more than the other.

The upturned side, The Fig of all Ferns, features moments reminiscent to the opening loop of Black Dice’s “Kokomo” (see: Update Dream State); that is, if the audio had be excavated from the bottom of the Amazon river and not properly dried out. Skunky cadences chase after an uncatchable end result while keyboard melodies emerge from beneath the muck, only to be replaced by new ones in a moments time. Nothing sticks around for too long, like ants scurrying to do their duties, always changing and moving, but still remaining elementally the same. And The Fig of all Ferns is a diverting listen, too. Not all doomy and gloomy. Aguirre’s head-space, this is not. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of this was lifted from an old unreleased jungle themed video game.

The unexposed side (are you as done with this metaphor as I am?), Celsius, is longer in form, and isn’t necessary dark in an evil or heavy way, just tenebrous and nighty-er than The Fig of all Ferns. The synths this round are more contorted and stacked and higher reaching, and the pulse of percussion is absent, leaving loops of note-strokes to lead the way down the audio path, allowing Terlu’s fingers to get good and saucy overtop. And your speakers are not blown, by the way (which was my initial reaction). That’s, like, how it’s suppose to sound, you know?

The Fig of all Ferns and Celsius, in concept, are each simple as a dimple, but still engaging and repeatable. I’m smitten as a kitten with them both. They’re out on that hot and popular format of cassette in editions of 35, so go on and get you some!

• Terlu: https://soundcloud.com/terlu
• Exo Tapes: http://exotapes.com

Chocolate Grinder

CHOCOLATE GRINDER is our audio/visual section, with an emphasis on the lesser heard and lesser known. We aim to dig deep, but we’ll post any song or video we find interesting, big or small.

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