RAWWAR

Chronique

New York's Gang Gang Dance follow their CD/DVD issue of the Retina Riddim EP (a single 24-minute track on the CD and a DVD of, well, never mind) with Rawwar, a three-track set that comes in at just under 20 minutes and is presented by the Social Registry imprint in a tri-panel foldout with art from various friends' video projects. Musically, Rawwar isn't all that different from the sessions that produced 2005's Hillulah, except that the synth sounds here are way cheesier, as in pure '80s. Cheap drum machines, kit drums, loops, and synth strings play in simplistic pop patterns on "Oxygen Demo Riddim," evoking something akin to early Orchestral Manouevres in the Dark fooling about in the studio. "Nicoman" has actual kit drums, guitars, and synth strings all playing in a semi-Eastern groove (think of nightclub music in Lebanon), with Liz Bougatsos' vocals expertly bringing the entire musical mix to a nearly believable level. But the tune rocks, too. The guitars begin to sting and punctuate her high-pitched vocals and she comes on nearly rapping in the bridge. It's a gorgeous tune: exotic, dubby, tripped out, and tight. The final cut, "The Earthquake That Frees Prisoners" spends its first three minutes as a nearly ambient soundscape before Bougatsos' warbling, nearly yowling vocals enter over an underwater synth before the whole thing just breaks loose with spoken narration by one of the male members of this group, a big, fat early-'80s drum loop kicks in, thins out, and this strange story unfolds as an aural travelogue while effects -- again synth strings, keyboards, and the swooping sound of Bougatsos' reedy voice -- shimmer in and out. On and on it goes and it's less a "song" than it is a seeming soundtrack to a news report underscored with noise, rambling, shambling percussion, and tape effects. In other words, there is little to really hold it together, and hearing this baby once is more than enough. More than anything else, it feels as though these cuts might have been cutting-room material from Hillulah. Rawwar is anything but; it sounds like art students doing their best to be aimless, pretentious, and arty, but coming off as, and merely sounding like tired children.

© Thom Jurek /TiVo