(2021) Lucrecia Dalt & Aaron Dilloway - Lucy & Aaron  


Review:
With their respective bodies of work, sound artists Lucrecia Dalt and Aaron Dilloway have each forged jagged paths of expression. With albums like her bracing 2020 set No Era Solida, Dalt dissected electronic pop until it was a writhing mass of disconnected wires and pulses. Likewise, over the course of a discography that reaches back to the ’90s, Dilloway’s experiments with tape manipulation and noise grew into statements that were both viscerally abrasive while still somehow conveying levity, humor, and a spectrum of personal feelings refracting through the harshness. Collaborative album Lucy & Aaron follows several less fully realized releases from the duo, and finds both players at the highest articulation of their personal styles while the chemistry between them gels into something deeper. Album opener “Tender Cuts” begins with the kind of dizzying analog tape loop that Dilloway built masterpieces like his 2012 solo effort Modern Jester on, and he’s soon joined by Dalt’s subliminal vocal snippets. The loop slows to half speed and makes space for slithering bursts of static and layers of processed vocals to vibrate at barely audible levels below the mix. Strains of unconventional melody and rhythm form the skeleton of the uneasy “Demands of Ordinary Devotion,” with a drifting chord progression locking into time with an overpowering loop of repetitive snapping feedback. Dalt’s multi-tracked vocals again sit at blurry levels, with melodic singing, spoken parts, and delay-treated yelps all fading into each other. The combination of Dalt’s pristine and time-destroying electronics with Dilloway’s deteriorating sonics is captivating, and the arrangements for all the tracks are marked by deep consideration for space and pacing. Even more interesting are the moments when it’s harder to place who’s responsible for which sound. “The Blob” grows from a hypnotic milliseconds-long drum loop into a skeletal song made up of high-pitched synths and haunted vocal melodies. It’s minimal but breathes like a sick animal, with a network of disorienting electronic and sample-based sounds again lurking just beneath the surface. Many of the album’s tracks crossfade into one another, making it harder to discern where one statement ends and another begins, or which artist is guiding the entanglement of loops and decaying voices. Lucy & Aaron‘s use of restraint and stereo imaging when presenting its patchwork of amusical sounds is masterful. What could appear on its surface to be a collection of surrealistic audio snippets is carefully arranged to communicate sweetness, excitement, playfulness, and grief. It’s a rare feat for any noise record, and the perfect balance of weirdness and emotional exploration makes it a highlight of both Dalt and Dilloway’s already impressive catalogs.


         


Track List:
01 - Tender Cuts
02 - Demands of Ordinary Devotion
03 - Yodeling Slits
04 - Bordeándola
05 - Trueno
06 - Both Blue Moons
07 - Niles Baroque
08 - Voyria
09 - The Blob
10 - Tense Cuts
11 - Ojazo
12 - The Tunnel


Media Report:
Genre: experimental
Country: Berlin, Germany
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits


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