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Rhythm is maybe the oldest form of human consciousness expansion. Every human ritual sacred and profane, has a heart of rhythm. And when you get right down to it, so does every human. Which means that rhythm is as universal as it is personal—a path that leads both inward and to the beyond. That’s why it’s so much fun.
Rhythm is what Inanimate Identities is all about. Indeed, the first thing that grabs you is the snare drum in “Manic Mosaic”—all bare bones and tight skin—rattling out a skittering beat around which the rest of the music hovers, twirls and swoops. That snare is like a flame in a dark room, and the music like the shadows the flame casts on the walls around it; and the longer you focus your attention on the snare/flame the stranger the patterns in the shadows/music become. After it’s over, it’s hard to believe the track is only a few minutes long—it’s an epic.
“Laughing Helicopter” keeps the beat primal, but with a nod to modern methods. The ancients may have conjured spirits with hollow logs and stretched skins, but a modern rhythmic adventurer is more likely to exploit the metrical properties inherent in tape loops—which is what Sight Follows Sound do in the first section of this track. What’s more they manage to manipulate the syncopated tape beats so that they wrap perfectly around the more elementary tom beat underneath it—the past, the future, everything is now. There’s more electronic rhythm in “Sick Slots”--the first part of which sounds like a circuit-driven gamelan cranking out inhumanly precise patterns that still manage to swing. The final track, “Crumbling Houses,” goes back to the drum for an exhilarating workout that’s as celebratory as the first track is menacing.
For all its rhythmic invention, it could be that the greatest success of “Inanimate Identities” is how well the non-rhythmic elements are incorporated into the ever-moving structures of the tunes. There’s the incredibly colorful sound pallet in the opening parts of “Sick Slots,” for instance, and the gloriously melodic dub section that follows. There’re also the sinister harmonic developments in “Manic Mosaic,” and the soaring synth lines in “Crumbling Houses.” Even considering its short running time, this album is overflowing with musical ideas. Ultimately, “Inanimate Identities” is one for the mind.
