Month: July 2010

WILD NOTHING Gemini (Captured Tracks)

It strange how there are so many young Americans (Atlas Sound and The Drums to name but two) striving to recreate that great 80s British guitar/synthpop sound. Wild Nothing is one Jack Tatum from Virginia who, in Gemini, has created an album that sounds like it was made in Sheffield or Manchester in 1985. There are so many lines of references on the 12 tracks here it should please just about everyone who has an interest in finely crafted hook-laden, Brit-inflected pop.

So, is this merely a pastiche of the music that he loves? Surely the influences are undeniable and very often you’ll hear vocals, keyboards, drum machine lines, guitar patterns that will make you try to pin-point where exactly you’ve heard it before. This might sound strange, but a close approximation would be Gary Numan-meets-China Crisis-meets-Joy Division-meets-The Smiths updated for the 21st century. But pastiche it is not as Tatum infuses each track with his own idiosyncratic style of vocals over tracks that have familiar components parts, but not as they are presented as a whole.

Opener Live In Dreams starts with flanged/chorus guitars woozing and wobbling, fading into Tatum’s vocals and led by a keyboard line that aspires to sound like a Chinese flute, the track is an indication of the album to come. There are melodies and hooks galore here, such as on Chinatown – which is appropriately one of the more-China Crisis influenced moments with its repeating keyboard motif echoing away (think Wishful Thinking). Tatum somehow manages to stamp his own clear style on the tracks to each time just as they teeter dangerously into sounding merely like copies of 80s originals.

What’s baffling for me is how someone such as Tatum is so imbued with the sounds from mid-80s Britain when most of his neighbours growing up would much more likely sound Foo Fighters or Dave Matthews or Linkin Park (perhaps another sign of far too much time spent holed up in his bedroom poring over British imports when he should have been out playing baseball, fishing or having a kegger). He nails the vocals, guitars and synths; all sounding suitably like they were produced in the depths of a foggy London bedsit. Bored Games though lights things up with bright bursts of beats and bass, garnished by sustained keyboards perfect for closing your eyes and twirling along in your pajamas home alone. A lot of the atmospheric keyboards lean towards Ulrich Schnauss while matched with New Order-esque guitar hooks. Again, if I sound like I am dropping a lot of other names in comparison with Wild Nothing, I have to apologise as its inevitable because they’re there so clearly.

Other standout moments (and there are many here) include Summer Holiday opening with its joyous jangle of guitars; the semi-eletric-pastoralisms of O Lilac; The Witching Hour with its echoes of The Church’s chugging guitars; The summery Our Composition Book that borrows from current Swedish bands from the Labrador label; and the title track that closes the album and reminds us of Wild Nothing’s inspirations of Peter Hook, Bernard Sumner and Ian Curtis. Actually, there are rarely moments here that will make you click your skip button.

This is lo-fi with high lofty aspirations and more often than not, its spot on. Gemini is easily one of the most listenable/must listen albums of the year.

(Redmund Law)

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