Fergus Kelly — Plate Spinning

This is a curious little release from Room Temperature, with Fergus Kelly delivering 17 tracks that arrive in a simple plastic wallet. It’s a solo effort - and it’s a huge, perhaps overwhelming effort. Summarised simply, the album largely consists of short tracks (stretching to about three minutes, with some slightly longer pieces and one long ten-minute work) constructed from rhythmic layers of bass, samples, but most of all percussion. 

The back cover lists ‘found metals & plastics, drums, gongs, cymbals…’ and these represent the predominant sound of the release. However, rather than industrial clanking, or percussive ‘drum circles,’ Kelly has constructed an album that almost operates as library music. There’s a sense that some of these pieces could work as sections of a soundtrack. The tracks are beautifully performed, with the samples adding extra colour; however, the initial problem, for me at least, is that there is just so much of it. I’m all for ample material, but as an album it feels overlong to me. Whilst Kelly has made every effort to pull new tricks from a quite basic set-up, the album becomes repetitive and increasing less compelling, perhaps not helped by the attempts to cover a broad range of ground - a shorter album focused on one narrow idea might paradoxically have been more engaging. Several of the pieces have a post-rock structure or feel to them - some, unfortunately, sound like they require finishing elements, in the same way that some duo bands just sound like they’re missing instruments. The general approach is rhythmic and melodic, with basslines providing the skeleton structure for the other elements; however, there are some beautiful textures and sounds along the way - the drones on ’Swirling Curvature’ for example.

I’m sure that back in the mists of time someone described the first Tortoise album as someone playing a bass on a windy building site, and, minus the wind, this is not a bad description here. However, where that Tortoise album deployed space and a sense of expansiveness so well, Plate Spinning is much more compressed and flat. Neither hyperactive, nor sedate, the album plods along without any enormous dynamic changes. There are several wonderful passages and moments, but they get lost in the labyrinthian mass of material. As I said, the album has definite soundtrack qualities - perhaps even cartoon-like qualities - and the bulk of the material is intelligent and crafted, but for me the album is too long, and suffers for it.