Celebrating recording artists who supplant pop-hooks with engaging, academic counterpoint seems to be the MO of Pretty Purgatory (Portland, ME), and PDX’s Teton sure as shit fit the bill. The drummer, for starters, plays in Wei Zhongle, and, though markedly more consistent and restrained here, he still manages to fill in so, so, so many nooks & crannies surrounding the polyrhythmic webs of minimalist synth-phrases and off-time-but-on-fucking-point contralto cast by said honey-voiced e-ivory tickler. &to sweeten the pot, the bass player is incredibly tasteful AND creative in deftly jumping back and forth between lending rhythmic support and carving out powerful, contrapuntal flourishes. The result is a proggy avant-rocker that’ll deliver, over and over, inspiring the spine to tremble in anticipation for these inarticulable syncopations long before the ears & brain can even begin to map them.
https://prettypurgatory.bandcamp.com/album/candy-spelling
and/or
http://www.prettypurgatory.com/
--Jacob An Kittenplan
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