EROS. Credit score: Sen
I’d love to tell you all about this EROS history, but proper now, I have gotta deal with these beetles. These invasive, bejewelled pricks are creating a meal of my backyard garden, muscling out the fauna that need to be nibbling my greens. So, I’m steeling myself for an complete massacre. Now, this is not my usual mode of existence – I’m a stay and allow dwell sorta man – but if I’m remaining sincere with myself, I’m satisfied for the distraction.
Since lately, I have grow to be dull. Or probably bored. Or bored of myself. You see, thanks to preexisting health-related problems, my companion and I, for the most aspect, continue being in lockdown. Though a lot of the globe has begun to live as if the pandemic is more than and completed with, we’re nevertheless trapped in a cycle of function and household. I have not found are living new music in a club because 2019 and I’m functioning out of strategies to continue to keep my brain from rotting.
Thankfully, in addition to individuals blessed, damned beetles, I have bought an inbox overflowing with e-mail, every single a jewel of opportunity. First rate types deliver perhaps a 50 percent an hour or so of novelty. Wonderful ones, like the 1 that contains the matter of this evaluate, EROS’s A Southern Code, are god-sent. Not only do they comprise new tunes, they include new music of authentic curiosity. A priceless commodity in my new era of boredom.
You’d be forgiven for having never ever heard of EROS, but faithful audience of this web page will undoubtedly recognise its constituent areas: the 1 and only Karl O’Connor aka Regis, Liam Andrews of tQ favourites MY DISCO, and legendary Einstürzende Neubauten-enabler Boris Wilsdorf. By now, those same audience in all probability know how I truly feel about these figures, which is to say: I like them a ton. These artists are lifers with genuine longevity – even MY DISCO, the “newest’ of the crew, have been all over just about two decades. Artists like this, their tales aren’t limited – their occupations have volumes.
I recently spoke with Joe Thompson and Chris Summerlin of Hey Colossus (lifers them selves) for this web-site, and some thing Thompson claimed outdoors of the scope of the job interview was this:
“When it arrives to bands like Yo La Tengo and Sonic Youth and The Fall and all the bands that stick it out, the tales are normally as interesting as the audio. And I consider that is truly significant. If you are a vinyl-digging nerd, the tale is intriguing. You go from Are living At The Witch Trials to Your Future Our Muddle. Like, classic documents with 30 yrs in among!”
Pointless to say, that resonated. In which a lot of that fascination lies (at least for me) is in amongst the volumes. It’s no shock that I have employed equivalent conditions to describe O’Connor’s vocation prior to: guides, volumes, chapter headings. Probably that’s lazy or a cop-out – or boring – but it truly is apt. I see O’Connor as a musician prone to both of those evolution and subtle reinvention. Excised from the protracted histories of the artists in the team, however, the story powering EROS is a uncomplicated a person. They are, as O’Connor describes it in the presser, a different accidental band:
“After working closely with Boris throughout the classes for my final album, we needed to preserve the momentum up and just hold recording tips that could maybe variety the foundation of a sister LP. It grew to become crystal clear during the recording that it was speedy starting to be anything other than a Regis report and the a few of us had unintentionally turn into a team.”
The realisation that this was anything other than a Regis document, the recognition that the trio experienced made a thing distinctive – that is essential. As significantly as EROS goes, there’s no concern that it is a distinct entity in each of its members’ respective catalogues. And that’s particularly clear when it arrives to O’Connor and Andrews.
O’Connor’s last two outings as Regis, Hidden In This Is The Light That You Miss out on and The Floor Will Increase, had a selected lightness in them, a delicacy almost. A Southern Code snuffs that out. It has a slight loss of life rock tint, a little bit of Southern gothic tinge. It’s serious abattoir stuff. When not precisely tricky or brutal, it feels merciless – in a way that latest Regis outings have not.
As for Andrews, as of late his key gig has most normally dealt in deconstruction, in an oppressive sparseness. Spare rooms total of thick air choked with dust motes and spores. EROS at its most minimal is wildly maximal compared to MY DISCO’s modern output. Which isn’t really to say EROS as a group are notably maximal. Their industrial preparations are often whole but never what I’d phone cluttered. I’d go so far as to describe them as considered, as just-suitable. The position of this paragraph is that almost anything at all as (virtually) song-oriented and involved with building the sort of rhythmic propulsion – with occasional hooks – that is EROS’s inventory-in-trade is likely to be maximal compared to MY DISCO’s very last two documents. (Which, to be clear, are equally killer.)
For his section, Wilsdorf’s presence is equally totally crucial and like anything of a Downwards regular. His is the unique sonic vocabulary of modern MY DISCO, of latest Regis. He excels at placing appears in his fabulously vast open up yet clearly delineated Wilsdorf-ian space. Of course, I just utilised the man’s name to describe the appears he engineers, but let us be true: any person even remotely acquainted with his function will recognise it right away – it’s that unique. Pretty much sculptural. If the seem of A Southern Code is nearly corporeal, its down to Wilsdorf.
It really is really hard to say what specifically EROS is for these fellas, arriving virtually a long time since they commenced their respective professions. Is it a new volume, a new chapter, a footnote, an appendix? A Southern Code is a trim file – five tracks about some thing like thirty minutes. But they’re meaty minutes. Factors like the substantial, rubberised bassline of ‘Uncommon Fears’, or the chisel-on-metal percussion and electronic squall of the title observe, or the mountainous feed-back and hypnotic vocals of ‘In This Place’ – they adhere to your bones. Continue to, when all is said and carried out, this album would not truly feel like an ending or summary, which is for sure. There is of course nevertheless operate to be performed. Most likely it is a prologue?
I can say for selected what it isn’t – dull.
A pair months back, I was so bored that I really researched boredom. Turns out, the term itself is a reasonably new one, historically speaking. The rough principle? Which is been about forever. Right now, I’m at my sink preparing a soapy concoction in which to drown the Japanese beetles at the moment copulating on my asters. Normally, when I work in the garden, my listening leans ambient, calming, so as not to absolutely block out the all-natural din all over me. Today, that does not feel acceptable. Now, I’m listening to A Southern Code.
