Subservient

Album review

A decade into his solo recording career, experimental musician Larry Gus (the alias of Panagiotis Melidis) offers up his first entirely sample-free recording with fourth full-length Subservient. While he was already relying less on samples with its predecessor, 2015's I Need New Eyes, he continues a parallel trend toward more coherent structures as he shifts into performing all of the instruments himself. That's not to say that Subservient is polished or mundane in any way; on the contrary, it reveals the same brain at work, with quirky, intricate arrangements consisting of an electric guitar, bass guitar, drum kit, percussion, vintage filter effects pedal, and, specifically, a Roland JV-1010 synth module and Teenage Engineering OP-1 portable synthesizer. The self-produced and self-recorded album's dense and danceable presentation underscores anxious lyrics (that alternate freely between Greek and English) about being overwhelmed as an artist, father, and citizen in the late 2010s. He starts things off with the oddball dance-funk of "Total Diseases (Subservience)," which opens with a few seconds of pinball machine-like percussive and tonal clatter before launching into a steady dance groove and melody. The track's cartoonish synth voices are typical of the whole album, which offsets tense lyrics and near-constant spontaneity with playful timbres and easygoing synth pop rhythms. "Text of Intent" is a bit spacier in nature, with its reverb, sustained tones, humming synths, and animated hand drums, though whimsical synth interjections also make appearances. Later, "The Sun Sentions" plays out like a classic '80s 12" remix: light on lyrics and heavy on shifting versions of danceable eight-bar musical phrases. Throughout the track list, Larry Gus' balance of the familiar and the wacky keeps things engaging -- and charmingly eccentric -- if it stops short of catchy.
© Marcy Donelson /TiVo