Soundbites

Enon “Hocus Pocus” Touch and
Go

Perhaps it’s super artsy smartsy to go from sheer
electronic dance to reverb alterna-rock mayhem, but it’s also
super frustrating. Vocalist/bassist Toko Yasuda’s voice is
Tinkerbell on Lotus leaves, and more irresistible then the Hearst
Castle swimming pool in mid-August on the album’s first
track, “Shave.” And then suddenly, track two hits, the
water evaporates into the grit of guitar, and the fairy from Never
Neverland mutates into guitarist and second vocalist John
Schmersal. Appalling. But wait, not really. It’s just coffee
is crap after orange juice, and we all know both are part of a
well-balanced breakfast. “Hocus Pocus” is Enon having a
bit of reckless fun with your ears’ digestive juices and
doing its part to blend the unexpected until you can’t help
but expect it. And of course, you can thank Enon again for lyrics
that steer clear of the mundane, if not off the edge into dreamlike
obscurity. Yasuda’s ability to meld her voice into an almost
synth-like operation earns the fourth paw for the album, but
Schmersal wins his own appeal, and the two split vocals on
“Murder Sounds” with addictive results. Just be careful
not to start putting oranges in your perculator. -Erin
Glass

Matmos “The Civil War” Matador
Records

As the album’s title might imply, San Francisco-based
electronic duo Matmos’ fifth LP references the past as much
as it dabbles in the heady experimentalism that’s become the
group’s trademark. Instead of looking toward surgical
procedures for sonic inspiration (as it did in its last album
“A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure”) the group uses
more conventional instrumentation to round out its creative
palette. The approach suits the duo just fine. No matter what
sounds the group employs, Matmos has been able to meld them into
cohesive organic collages, as if it has discovered inherent
relationships between the sounds. There are tunes here, which make
Matmos more American indie than Detroit techno. The album peaks
early with a nine-minute epic, “Reconstruction,” which
begins with a militant shuffling beat before setting off into
full-on IDM mode and steadily evolving into an organic interplay
between dobro, acoustic guitar and synths. The appropriately named
“Y.T.T.E. (Yield to Total Elation)” is a shimmering
track that twists and turns with a loopy guitar pattern, eventually
giving way to a spare, ambient second half. But this wouldn’t
be a Matmos album without at least some sonic indulgence; and the
group shows no signs of easing up. The distorted nursery melodies
of “The Stars and Stripes Forever” sound like an LSD
trip at Disneyland on the Fourth of July. “The Civil
War” shows Matmos at its typical top form ““ the
group makes its experimentalism sound easy. -Andrew
Lee