Now where have I heard that name before???
Artiste: Boduf Songs
Nationality: British
Album: Stench of exist
Year: 2015
Label: Kranky
Genre: Experimental, ambient, acoustic
Tracks:
Jacket cruiser
My continuing battle with material reality
Thwart by thwart
The witch cradle
Great anthem of my youth
Head of hollow-fill and mountaintop removal
The rotted names
Grows in the small world of nerve
Modern orbita
Last song but one
Sky pedal’s plan
Chronological position: Second album
Familiarity: Zero
Interesting factoid:
Initial impression: Oww! My ears! But wait: what’s this? A piano?
Best track(s): My continuing battle with material reality, Thwart by thwart, Great anthem of my youth, Modern orbita, Last song but one
Worst track(s): Jacket cruiser
Comments: The odd thing about this is that, when I saw the album I said to myself, that sounds familiar. The name I mean. And yet, searching for the term brings up no other references. I thought it might somehow refer to mythology, particularly the Vikings, but no. It seems not to have been used before. Very weird. Anyway, Boduf Songs is a name taken by Mat Sweet, who has recorded some other stuff but makes this the second album of his own material to be released. I guess in a way he’s like yer man Bon Iver, using an assumed name. The album is all him, playing, singing, writing, producing. “Jacket cruiser” opens with what sounds like the sound of a telephone being dialled and then some mad screechy sounds that Frownland would surely wet himself over. Very experimental, very avant-garde, and the kind of thing that would have had me moving on had I not heard other samples.
It’s only short anyway, just over a minute, and leads into a dark, melancholic piano as “My continuing battle with material reality” changes everything up, a dour, bitter song with almost whispered vocal, slow and morose but somehow quite beautiful in its stark simplicity. I’m told he uses a violin bow (apparently not the violin though) and that may be the sound I’m now hearing, though there is a computer involved too, and something called “manipulated field recordings”, which those of you who are fortunate and talented enough to be musicans will understand more than I do. Next up is a more uptempo song, the same low-key vocal but a little more urgency in it and some more pronounced percussion as “Thwart by thwart” takes us further into Sweet’s dark world.
There’s another short effects interlude before we hit “Great anthem of my youth”, which is a sort of swinging piano beat, but slow, if you understand, with some interesting effects in attendance, a kind of classical influence in the melody, then “Head of hollow-fill and mountaintop removal” has to win some sort of prize for the weirdest song title ever, and it lives up to its name, with a sort of phased spoken vocal (reminds me of Hawking) against what sounds like violin and slow drumbeats. It’s weird with a capital Waits. You ever heard “What’s he building?” It’s a little like that, in terms of a slow, dark menacing feel. Acoustic guitar drives “The rotted names”, with a somehow Simon and Garfunkel idea, some more weirdness at the end and what may be the sound of a train pulling into, or out of a station opens “Grows in the small world of nerve”, with again a violin fading in and a dark, morose atmosphere about it. It may very well be instrumental.
Yeah, it is. Pretty evocative I must say. More tribal and sort of Peter Gabrielesque is “Modern orbita” with a nice kind of droning synth or something, that hushed, whispered vocal again and back to acoustic guitar with echoey drums for the lazily but appropriately titled “Last song but one”, which is really quite nice. Sweet does certainly give here a masterclass on the art of singing without having to shout or roar over the music; I get the feeling he wouldn’t know how to raise his voice, and yet he’s clearly audible all through the album. It makes for introspective, thoughtful singing, as if he’s singing to you personally. The final track is just effects and sounds, closing out a weird but quite starkly elegant album.
Overall impression: Wouldn’t usually be my sort of thing, but I really quite enjoyed this.
Hum Factor: 5
Surprise Factor: 8
Intention: I may listen to his other material at some point