[reviews] afe035lcd
frog pocket: caric kils

A fascinating disk from Frog Pocket – who apparently have had a few releases to date. The key to most of the album is juxtaposition – a gritty complex and fascinating in itself percussive bed placed against a lyrical musical lines, equal in focus, but perhaps leaning towards the percussion.

"Fir Faas", for example, runs a harp melody, that is suggestively Scottish, on a very industrial clattering that is messy, intricate and dense, the two parts possibly linked through gating or just precise creation, but neither dominates the subtle weave.

Flowing into "Underwood Ladykirk" where the drum loop is again complex, chipping and chopping, slipping sticking and sliding, forming the auditory focus, coloured by shimmering and a lyrical guitar.

The balance changes in "Ersweet" where the surface is a crackling distorted atonality while the base is slow and deep metallic abstract welling out while a buzzing tries to create a subterranean rhythm.

A lovely guitar over a drum-box and crunchy stuff dominates "My Little Friend" with occasional strange noises in a relaxed, evening sound, joined by tones and growth of the other layers and added processing.

"Felix Kubin" is a joyously manipulated piece of local colour: a manipulated reel. A slightly sped up guitar and fiddle lead into the real reel, where there are light touches of processing. The speed increases and extraneous noises are felt – motors, seep – before ending with fiddled fiddle and loose guitar.

"Syml Fetlar" sees long tones of light spin a magic web that leads into "Come On the Arches!" with more d’n’b, fuzzy electronica and very messy, drops out to a simple percussion and light guitar, before rebuilding with machinegun rhythm, the guitar maintaining a melody and all sorts of wild skipping processing and swirls.

A softer mood revisits with "Eye Beby Y Ben II"’, a tentative percussion playing and developing around two sweet violin lines, sliding into a long fade.

An unusual and invigorating album, very enjoyable for either/both the poly-rhythms and/or the melodies. It will be well-worth exploring some earlier Frogs.

[?]