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Track Listings
| 1. Glass Jar |
| 2. ∞ |
| 3. Adult Goth |
| 4. Chinese High |
| 5. MindKilla |
| 6. ∞ ∞ |
| 7. Romance Layers |
| 8. Sacer |
| 9. ∞ ∞ ∞ |
| 10. Thru And Thru |
Product Description
Review
If anything, GGD’s last LP, the Warp-released (in the UK) Saint Dymphna, was their push towards commercial recognition. It featured a collaboration with Tinchy Stryder, preceding the pint-sized Brit-rapper’s current chart dominance; and Hot Chip weighed in with a remix that could have opened a few more doors for the outfit on this side of the Atlantic. But despite great reviews, the album and its makers seem destined to sit in the shadow of the breakthrough likes of similarly singular oddballs like Animal Collective. Eye Contact could therefore be heard as something of a retreat from the coalface of commercial sensibility, opening as it does with a 12-minute track sure to miss out on notable radio coverage due to its length. A shame: Glass Jar is magnificent, a spiralling, sprawling masterpiece of mischievous melodies that worm their way in deep, built from glistening foundations and climaxing, amazingly, too early. It could last an hour and still be as special.
The vocals of Liz Bougatsos won’t click with everyone – like The Knife’s Karin Dreijer Andersson, aka Fever Ray, she manages to sound like the woman who fell to Earth, utterly alien but wholly beguiling as she squeezes syllables into the limited spaces left by her bandmates. Together they weave a soundtrack to future parties, held on space stations spinning around the outer rings of Saturn. Little here seems to be connected with terrestrial movements; and when there is a flash of something comfortably graspable, like the oriental clinks of Adult Goth and the fairground pulsations of MindKilla, they’re surrounded by the otherworldly presence of Bougatsos. Only Romance Layers really seems born of this world, its neo-soul-goes-sci-fi strut a distant, deformed cousin of D’Angelo’s seductive tones; or Grace Jones, the Star Trek years.
Three incidental numbers flesh out what might otherwise seem to skimp on content, on paper: but even reduced to its seven songs ‘proper’, this is one of the most captivating, exciting, original albums of the year. GGD have delved into what, to almost any other artist, is the complete unknown to produce another set offering rich rewards to those who let it work its magic without reaching for the skip or shuffle button. Their relationship with corners of the cranium that we don’t regularly reach continues to produce remarkable results. Beam it into the stars and watch the replies flood in.
--Mike Diver
Find more music at the BBC This link will take you off Amazon in a new window
Product Description
Customer Reviews
new 4AD album 'Eye Contact'. At its best it twists and turns
and coaxes and confuses like a huge exotic colourful bird
spreading ribbons of fire across a great night sky (listen to
the magical opening track 'Glass Jar' if you don't believe me!)
This is dazzlingly sensual music; a very rich repast; music sewn
together from snatches and patches of the rarest of dream materials.
Singer Liz Bougatsos has an extraordinary voice. It matters little
that we fail to grasp most of the words; she makes a beautiful noise.
Although highly structured the band's compositional and instrumental
skills display a wonderfully anarchic democracy. The textures are rich;
the beats often floor-shakingly huge; the shades and shadows of subtly
realised multi-cultural thematic elements seamlessly integrated.
'Adult Goth' is a veritable prog-come-Arabic-dance-come-riot of a song.
Ms Bougatsos hits some stratospherically high top notes without any
hint of her tottering on her heels. They slice through the the air and
bury themselves deep in our brain tissue like hot silver bullets.
'MindKilla' is a cut-and paste-Latin-nightmare-from-Hell. The almost
demonic vocal distortions juxtaposed with ebullient high-energy
nerve-shredding rhythms make for the kind of thrill-a-minute ride
which every good dancefloor deserves.
The spirit of The Small Purple One seems alive and well in the deliciously
barmy (and balmy) 'Romance Layers'. Sweet soul music from Alpha Centauri.... Read more ›
Listen to the single "Mindkilla" with its huge slabs of synths and propulsive drive which will storm Mediterranean disco floors where you will be able to sing along to the funkiest version of the lyrics of the children's rhyme "Hush little baby don't say a word mama going to buy you a mockingbird". The album like Gang Gang Dance brilliant EP Kamakaru has at its commencement a huge 11 minute anthem to die for entitled "Glass Jar" commencing with ambient voices and sounds woven into poetic harmonies. It quickly turns into an almost Vangelis style operatic synth workout and at around six minutes develops with fast paced cadences into a joyous dance track. This reviewer has heard nothing quite like it this year and it's simply stunning. But the enjoyment doesn't end here, far from it. The song "Adult Goth" could be a modern Bond theme with its massive sonic ambition and sounds going off into the stratosphere. Alternatively "Romance layers' is a duet with Hot Chips Alexi Taylor and a deep funk workout which for some reason reminds me of a song by Shalamar. It is the albums most accessible track and could be a huge single.... Read more ›
Though this album has definite aspects in common with the current yawnsome 80's influenced scene, it largely sidesteps the wholesale substandard rip off that other popular bands pump out. GGD have succeeded where most others haven't even attempted.
They've put a novel spin and their own perspective on this album and created something that veers from the Sisters of Mercy Floodland era "Adult Goth" to the vaguely Amp Fiddler-esque funk strut of "Romance Layers" to the Prodigy-like, rave horns a go-go, staccato "Mindkilla", through to the CT/MBV/early Lush pastiche of "Sacer". A rollercoaster of an album, no two songs are the same.
The drums on various track were immense and pounding. Yep play 2 coming up!
Opening dreamily, enlightening arpeggios twinkle with sentient life. Later there are Eastern European accents, curry house bhangra, jazzy inflections and yet 4AD still seems the perfect home for Gang Gang Dance. And that's not just because singer Lizzi Bougatsos mews all Elizabeth Fraser-like during the spectacular 11+ minute opener.
Just as 4AD legends Cocteau Twins were otherworldly, so too are 2012's Gang Gang Dance. With calypso programming here, synthetic Middle Eastern grooves there, Eye Contact could well be all of Earth's radio stations as heard simultaneously from Mars.
There's a real skill to this blend. Exotic, foreign language interludes and samples bewitch and charm when they could have been plain annoying. That said, despite all this oddness, fairly popular beats and bass sequences underpin this sometimes-highly danceable aural collage.
There is relatively straightforward single material to consider too. "Adult Goth" is an intoxicating cut that threatens as much as it caresses. Though more aggressive, "MindKilla" is also no less compelling, interesting nor commercial.
A proper album that couldn't nor shouldn't work on shuffle, Eye Contact holds your gaze far longer than is polite and does so with an irresistible promise of the unknown. Be impulsive. Dance.
Advised downloads: "Adult Goth" and "MindKilla".
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