Courtis/Moore – KPPB

Earbook

Alan Courtis (of Reynols fame) and Aaron Moore (of Volcano the Bear) are at it again… colluding; colliding… hot on the heels of Brokebox Juke and a live document comes this new collaboration, a two track, 42 minute journey of differing tastes/textures and expanding ripples between the album’s epicentres of Buenos Aires and Brooklyn.

“King Pancreas” starts in mournful blowholes riding cymbal sheens, leaking dischords thrown unexpectedly to military snares in full execution roll. The saxy pendulum swings the betweens like a cabaret boa on a spot-lit performer on the cusp of something death-defying. The hovering heads of the cover looking on astonished, oooh(ing) like comical terrorists, loose purple wires popping out of their pineal glands. Wobbling button eyes affixed on the dislocations bingo kicking the grey matter in pneumatics and duplicated circus drum rolls… bounces… leaking over the empty concrete in aerodrome drones, crash-landing suddenly into more cursive skin that leave things in a wonky aftermath, half concussed, wooooshy loops and jack candy agitations.

Brilliantly observed phonographic slurs flowing in to the tranquil twang of Hawaiian guitar whose frets spill sun cream across your mind as the golden sands are lapped in tidal metal. A laid-back vibe that torques into a lovely flickering flame of jabbed ivory that gently pushes pins of melancholic piano into your soul coated in a mumbling post-party woe. A beautiful half-lit focus, all hollow husked, disgorged on a warm Esmerine violinette and twittering larynx. A sway thrown over a wooden glockenspiel spine, calypso ascending into a lock groove exit, panelled in light wood lung-like brackets. Softly switching atmospheres to savour.

The second track, “Punk Butter,” percolates in gliding cello, menacing drone and hobo grumbles. A curiously translucent vibe that starts in slack-limbed guitar, rattling twangs and beaten glassware. Silky Javanese detunes propelled on a bed of percussive bubbles with light screeches of “Yiddish widow” crawling the undersides. Subtle agitations fading out to a slow bow classical itch discoloured in counter-scrapes and a trembling Xenakis uncertainty. A tease of rhythm follows won over in cello everglades and snipped away further in backward scissors and tea-spooned ceramics. Ear tinsel swamped by an accordion drone, heavy tonal shifts beneath which some goat herder milks a Bukowski-fuelled abstraction. Murmur cakes thrown to a sudden improv dance of bodhrán drum and chattering brambles, something that unravels beautifully like a loose fitting ribbon sawn into a dispersing cloud.

What KPPB stands for is anybody’s guess, a neat abbreviation of the track titles maybe, a brief Google spasm pulled up Kiki Pink Princess Bed… intellectual property lawyers… a whole load of technical diagrams, numerous joyrides that follow the music; but this sort of thing never needs a fancy back story to prop it up, stands on its own merits; and to my ears I’m really glad it exists.

-Michael Rodham-Heaps-