Score: 3/10
Part of Jess Lipworth’s “blurb” on MySpace reads “more spaces less clutter.” Whether he just really digs Feng-Shui room arrangements is yet to be seen, but his sentiments about “space” seem to permeate through his debut album, Meandering Through. The album is a collection of beats, glitches, and field noises, which, I’ll be honest, seems to induce lethargy upon listening. Lipworth’s record label, VU-US is also home to Library Tapes side-project Forestflies, and the parallels between the two are uncanny. Like Forestflies, this album “stretches thin,” in fact, and it’s one of the few records that, after listening to it thoroughly over the past few weeks, I find it hard to remember what actually happens in it.
The beats appear to be recycled liberally, as while browsing Lipworth’s MysSpace and listening to “The Bird Sanctuary,” I was amazed to find that the track in question was actually far more interesting than I remembered it to be. I was soon disheartened when I realised I was playing two tracks at once. “The Bird Sanctuary” played in perfect time with Lipworth’s 'new' track on Myspace, “Summer Storm [edit].” Of course, this could just be coincidence, but if the beats are, as I suspect, at least similar, it hardly grants the listener with either change and to be honest, insulting, that this record barely develops from the following elements: slow ambience, glitchy beats, “meandering” synth noises, another layer of drum beats, “melodic” breakdowns, and occasionally Lipworth will employ a sample (though bear in mind when this happens, it won’t really add much to the music, it’s more of a case of “Oh, here’s a pointless sample”).
I will resist the urge to end that list with “Profit!”, because to be frank, neither the listener nor Lipworth can gain from this regurgitation of same-old ideas. Lipworth influences include Boards of Canada and Prefuse 73, obviously it isn’t fair on Lipworth if I compare him to these luminaries, but let’s pretend I’m a heartless, unfair reviewer (no doubt Lipworth fans will already think I am, but bear with me). Prefuse 73’s 2003 “outtakes” album, Extinguished: Outtakes, provides a far more fruitful listen, and considering the album is almost a collage of scrappy ideas, not all of which were worked into the final record, One Word Extinguisher, if Lipworth is really influenced by Herren, he should already know that innovation is key, as opposed to repetitive and droll beats with the odd sample thrown in. However, if this idea has really passed him by, as Meandering Through suggests, I’ll reiterate it here:
No one likes a bore.
After several listens of Lipworth’s album, I’ve come away thinking that Henri Bergson was right when he proposed the idea of “durée,” as I feel like I have wasted a good chunk of my life on this record, when in actuality I’ve probably only wasted a few hours. Although I don’t intentionally mean to insult Lipworth, or anyone that enjoys his music, I genuinely can’t see anything of interest in this album; it’s dull, drippy, dire and any other words you can think of that begin with “d” and suggest boredom.
Dearest Holly
ReplyDeleteI must say that your review is completely horrible.
While you are entitled to your opinion, please make sure that you are reflecting on the album, because you made a few silly, silly mistakes.
For someone who seems to know little, or nothing at all, about the artist (and yes sue me, I am a fan Oh Mighty Holly)you seem to write a great deal about him.
Vu-Us is not Lipworth's label, they just released his music (it's okay Holly). Nobody wants to hear about the irony you find in Myspace taglines, they want to hear about the album.
I'll give you one thing, you covered the album briefly, and I'll say briefly, because you continue to recycle what you could have summed up in one line.
What's interesting is that you actaully based your review on a comparison to Prefuse 73, when Lipworth clearly sounds nothing like Prefuse 73 (which by the way, Outakes was artless noise and crap).
Even more interestingly, you actually confess to reviewing an album after listening to it thoroughly after weeks...????
Why bother, if you can't make up your mind after 2-3 listens like the average critic?
Maybe it's just that you're not a critic.
Now, these recycled beats you were talking of actually happen to be some of the most varied and tightly composed some of us have heard in a while. You gave no mention to the intricate piano melodies, the organis bass, the fact that Lipworth' tracks don't sound anything too much like anyone else, nor the fact that Lipworth's album tends to make a whole lot of sense when being compared to it's title.
At the end of the day Holly, no one likes a faux-intellectual that writes about music 'other' people make. Tearing something apart is one thing, doing it properly is something else.
I wish you best of luck with his next album Holly and hope it annoys the fuck out of you.
I agree with you jilted. I'm not a listener myself, but Holly' review is a stinker. I think I'll give the album a listen purely because of jilted' comment.
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