In a shocking twist, Mid-Air!, aka Christopher
Alan Harbach, has released a dementedly stunning new cassette tape of warped
sampledelic pleasures. Wait, did I say “shocking twist”? I meant “In the world’s
most obvious news …” stunning tape, etc. That’s right, there’s more Mid-Air! in
the world, and that’s always a good thing. This time he pairs with Dorfeus
McNeely, and together they trip down psychedelic paths blazed by Boards of
Canada and Black Moth Super Rainbow – in fact, you’ll have to forgive me for
thinking that Alkaline Battery feels
at times like a higher-fi version of Falling
Through a Field, albeit with more jazz inflections and zero vocals. There
is sampled speech, sure, but it basically melts off the turntable like your
face melts off in the mirror when you’re sky high.
Freaky.
Might be time to plug this thing in, then. Or
recharge it. It’s a battery after all, and it looks like one – well, the
packaging anyway. It moves haltingly through seasick rhythms like a Christmas
toy chugging all the juice it can from these AAs before they inevitably have to
be replaced. And that’s where Mid-Air! and Dorfeus come in, or always are. They’re
the replacements and the replaced, the constant cycle of wringing as much
enjoyment as you can from a battery-powered object until you either lose
interest in it and don’t bother with it anymore or you melt the sucker’s
circuits all the way down. Come to think of it, Alkaline Battery is sort of the sound of all of that. Revel in it!
https://mid-air.bandcamp.com/
http://100percentbootleg.com/
--Ryan
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