Wire Review
. 230 Divisadero 230 Divisadero
Locust CD
230 Divisadero's music is uniformly slow but doesn't ever drag, either because the rippling waves of loops, guitar lines, percussion and electronics have their own slow energy, or else the music dissolves into an area where speed simply can't me measured as such. The due of Nick Grey and Matt Shaw, based in Monaco and the UK respectively, invite a wide range of musical comparisons. Their music is song based - and there are some good tunes on show - but even at their most straightforward they can take odd turns. "Hands", for example, is a pretty song set to a beginner's piano but disintegrates towards the close. They weave found sounds into the spartan keyboard figures of the hushed "Porte- À-Faux", and here they seem set back from the listener, communicating directly but from a distance, like Bark Psychosis at their most enigmatic. Other comparisons that spring to mind are the long, unravelling guitar lines of Talk Talk on the opener "How I Keep Myself Energised" and, elsewhere on that episodic nine minute song, the rapt concentration of Current 93. But 230 Divisadero have their own strong identity, albeit one that resists pigeonholing. Their approaches to songform vary greatly from late night balladry, to pastoral reveries, to sections where the vocals are echoed so their meaning becomes blurred and indistinct, as on "L èri Archar". That's a kind of neat summation of the album as a whole, as it passes back and forth across the border between lucid thought and a hypnagogic, dreamlike state.
Mike Barnes - THE WIRE 286
Locust CD
230 Divisadero's music is uniformly slow but doesn't ever drag, either because the rippling waves of loops, guitar lines, percussion and electronics have their own slow energy, or else the music dissolves into an area where speed simply can't me measured as such. The due of Nick Grey and Matt Shaw, based in Monaco and the UK respectively, invite a wide range of musical comparisons. Their music is song based - and there are some good tunes on show - but even at their most straightforward they can take odd turns. "Hands", for example, is a pretty song set to a beginner's piano but disintegrates towards the close. They weave found sounds into the spartan keyboard figures of the hushed "Porte- À-Faux", and here they seem set back from the listener, communicating directly but from a distance, like Bark Psychosis at their most enigmatic. Other comparisons that spring to mind are the long, unravelling guitar lines of Talk Talk on the opener "How I Keep Myself Energised" and, elsewhere on that episodic nine minute song, the rapt concentration of Current 93. But 230 Divisadero have their own strong identity, albeit one that resists pigeonholing. Their approaches to songform vary greatly from late night balladry, to pastoral reveries, to sections where the vocals are echoed so their meaning becomes blurred and indistinct, as on "L èri Archar". That's a kind of neat summation of the album as a whole, as it passes back and forth across the border between lucid thought and a hypnagogic, dreamlike state.
Mike Barnes - THE WIRE 286
Comments
Hi matt.
It's Quentin from Paris. I haven't been in contact for a while, but I hope my name rings a bell. I'm writing to you here, because I recently acquired the 230 divisadero album and it's blowing my mind. I took the train to Berlin last week, and I listened to it repeatedly. It was the perfect soudtrack to the landscapes we could see: industrial zones in Belgium and empty fields in Germany. I'd be very excited if you would come and play in Paris. Please keep me updated. I hope all is well. Cheers, Quentin