Hi Red Center “Assemble” (Joyful Noise recordings, 2009)

More from the Brooklyn assembly line of interesting bands

What if you took math rock and played around with it a bit? Cut it up, spliced in some lush passages that sound a bit like Sufjan Stevens? Well if you did, you will have created HRC who are a kind of MGMT only with more ideas and musical and mental dexterity. ‘Symmetry Chameleon’ boasts at least seven ideas - there’s the mad orchestral rush of Sufjan, some gentle lyrical pastoral passages, rumbling electronica, angular post-rock riffing, Steve Reich music for voices, silence and smears of pop - not bad in four and a half minutes and even better that it all hangs together with some sort of coherence.

The band profess a love of Lionel Ritchie and Captain Beefheart. Well, the guitars rolling and lurching and ejaculating all over ‘Nowheresville’ certainly show a love fro the good captain. I’m hard pressed to find the influence of the commodore. The vibraphones circle and chimelike a child’s mobile whilst the percussion skitters around ‘Lullaby’, whereas on ‘Chicken Gorret’ the vibes are drawn into a vortex of sounds that might give a child a most uncomfortable night. ‘Trees in a Row’ mixes math rock and minimalism beautifully; passages of choral repetition are interspersed with repeating angular phrases and melodic runs. ‘Pipe Dreams’ does away with dissonance, the guitars behaving as the vibraphone douses any sparks that might erupt, obedient patterns followed and rewarded with clarinet, trumpet and bassoon, the cerebral arrangements never impinging on the joyfulness of the music. Throughout the playfulness and the glee are matched by the formal structure of the music meaning that it is both challenging and enjoyable.

Date review added:  Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Reviewer:  David Cowling
Reviewers Rating:
Related web link:  You're hired center