For Sparkle Division‘s second outing, they are officially a trio, with Preston Wendel returning as well as producer Gary Thomas Wright helping William Basinski out and Foxy is quite a curious listen.
It really feels like a step back in time with the opening bossa beat straight out of an enormous rhythm machine, standing in the corner of a sunken-floor living room with shag pile carpets and orange wallpaper. The comfort of the sax, the sway of the background strings, the title “Have Some Punch”; it all evokes a hip party, ladies in flowing nylon dresses sashaying around the drinks cabinet.
It is like a strange dream that the Henry Mancini finger clicks of “Here Comes Trouble” continue. A double bass groove and bleary sax give the whole things a far sleazier vibe. The lights are a little lower now and the drinks are starting to kick in as the sax streaks through the gathering gloom, and the rhythmic propulsion sends people out onto the balcony.
The piano is plundered and the strings vibrate with gusto as the album moves on, a little more dramatic, veering at points into a kind of hybrid of drum’n’bass and trip-hop, harking back to the previous album. The soully backing vocals bring the vibe into the early nineties and you can see the carpet dissolve as a dancefloor appears before you. Like a dream, it wavers in a liminal point between eras, the surge of the more modern and stronger groove eventually giving way to a reprise of the opening gambit.
You know the evening is over then, although not too sure as to what exactly has transpired and perhaps that is the purpose of the album; lull you with a little familiarity, but ultimately try and fuse your memories until they become something else.-Mr Olivetti-
