Print
Highlights Of Horror
Print Records
By Jose Fritz
There is a lot to be said of deconstructionist art rock, and most of it’s not very nice. In drumming, the accidental click of the sticks in mid-swing is a technical foul, a grievous error. It’s a reason to redo a take, or edit a live song from a release. It’s more obvious than a flat note or a flubbed string. The sound cuts across all mix-down tracks and is widely considered a sign of the allies losing the war.
The belief is a single example of the precision-based philosophy of modern rock music. It’s largely unchallenged since sloppy songs sound like crap. In lieu of a competing theory we move forward strong in our collective assumption. This is how reality is formed, not through observance but through collusion and mutual consensus.
Print is not a card-carrying member of that team. Their songs embrace sloppy chaos: flubbed strings, flat notes, and arrhythmic sticking and all. For them, this is only a counterpoint to the incredibly tight instants that prove the decision is deliberate. Like the birth of the universe there is chaos and substance with mass but not structure, and then suddenly they come together and kick in tight as a new transmission. But as incredibly precise and exact as they are capable of, they do not do so to show off. They are teasing their listeners with the possibility of the head bob. Moments after the rhythm coheres, it comes apart like birds scattering.
It’s a whole level of deconstructionist art rock I haven’t heard since Walter Carlos did the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange. Walt of course later became Wendy thus taking his deconstructionist notion to a whole new level wherein he needed to take apart the even the idea of gender. So short of becoming transsexuals Print is pretty deconstructionist. Not that I’ve seen a photo yet.
|
