Love Katy & Cory Strand — Just Wanna Try You On
This split CDR release find the pair utilizing one of the early hit’s of bright 'n' bubbly US female pop star Katy Perry as their sonic start point & theme. The track in question is 2008’s “I Kissed a Girl”, which saw the former Christian rock singer-song-writer going all kinky & slickly new wave pop like.
This release features four tracks in all, and these last between sixteen, to just under the twenty minutes mark. Firstly each artists presents their own original track, then each artists re-works the others efforts in another track a piece.
Opening up the release we have Love Katy’s “ It Felt So Wrong, It Felt So Right”. This track starts-up with a two or so minute sample from “I Kissed a Girl”- which takes in the pre-chours & chours. By just after the minute mark Killick has fed in a distorted & seared noise tone; to start with this follows the samples rhythmic pattern, then slowly but surely it melts away the sample. By the two minute sixteen mark the sample has vanished, and we are left we Killick's urgent & worming single static tone, which seems to be slowly but surely spread it’s self out. As we move towards the 4th minute the worming tone morphs into a low-flame like rumble, which is surrounded a crackling 'n' spluttering collection of smaller sub-tones. As this element progress Killick skilfully yet carefully adds on more layers of crackle, etc. By the eight minute twenty mark this element is dying back to be replaced by a reduced speaker crackle 'n' rumble almost muffled rhythmic texture, which has just under the surface a distant & faded sample from Ms Perry’s original track. By the 11th minute the distant sample has faded, and we’re left with this really moorish & semi rhythmic mixture of pop, crackle & splutter. Then by the 12. 30 mark a more even & advancing mass of jittering ‘n’ juddering noise has taken hold. Later-on this element has a different pattern of jittering ‘n’ juddering weaved through it to great disorientating effect. At the seventeen & half minute mark the “ I Kissed a Girl” sample starts to rise above the ‘wall’, and it becomes more & more clear /defined as the ‘wall’ fades - but instead of the tracks original electronic beat pop feel , it’s shifted into a more ‘real instrument’ led version with jaunting piano, backing vocals & a much more showy feel.
Next we have Cory Strand’s “My Head Get’s So Confused”. This track opens with a distant & reverb cave like sample of “I Kissed a Girl” chours, with shadowy sub-tones building & grown- these distance the sample more & more, as it carries on for the next two or so minutes. By the third minute a more thick, dense & implementable feel has kicked-in, and the track is now made up of a mass of feasting, rapid yet thick jittering noise tones. These tones for some reason brought to mind a mass of under water eels trying to rapidly going through a small tunnel. Underneath these elements you can make-out just the harmonic washers of the original Perry track, which have now being stretched out into a soaring shoe-gaze like rush of sound. The rest of the track flows out into a engaging & dense psychedelic rushing storm, which sits somewhere between: walled noise, dense harmonic shoe gaze, and pummelling psychedelic drone. The tracks finishes off with a brief interview sample with Ms Perry.
Track number three is taken up by Love Katy’s reworking of the Cory Strand track, and this is entitled “ Soft Skin, Red Lips, So Kissable”. This track starts off with another sample of “I Kissed a Girl”, but this time it’s a more urgent electric guitar based take on the track. Slowly but surely Killick is rising up a pummelling ‘wall’ of thick & rapid noise- this ‘wall’ has a rapid rushing feel to it, yet it feels a lot more aquatic & cold than Strands ‘wall’, and fairly soon Perry’s original track has been buried in the rush of sound. The rest of the track unfolds in a mostly unforgiving ‘n’ pummelling way, though from time to time the ‘wall’ thins back. You can still make out the odd dart of the samples original harmonic textures, through it’s much, much more subdued than the Strand original track. In it’s last few moments the reverb cave sample of “I Kissed a Girl” reappears with this great slow whipping & dragging textural element added on top, pretty soon the sample fades & we’re left with just the texture. I’ll have to admit this is my least favourite track of the four tracks here, as it just really feels like a cold & stripped out version of the Strand track, though that said I do very much enjoy the tracks last few minutes & the great whipping/dragging element
Lastly we have Cory Strand’s re-working of the Love Katy track, and this is entitled “The Taste Of Her”. And this starts with Strand stripping back the sound to a churning & meaty mass of rumbling tones, which sound like a mix of a running-down mixing machine churn & deep earth moving churn. I guess you’d say this track is just on the cusp between fixed meaty HNW, and more drifting ANW- yet it never fully starts to fade or haze out like ANW would do. In the last quarter of the track just Perry’s vocals return over the churning rumble, with Strand slowly echoing out trails from her singing. And in it last few mintues it just dwells in the looped simmering trails of Ms Perry’s voice, which create this stuck golden mass of tone with just a subtle trail of rumble beneath. It’s a inspired & surprising turn in the track making this a great end to the release, and it just shows how far you can go from a pop music yet still retain pop elements in an experimental context.
For the most part this release highlights the talent & sonic possibilities that both Strand & Killick bring to the HNW/ walled noise/ static noise scene. It’s just a pity the third track just mainly rehashed the Strand original, but it’s still a clever piece of sonic work. Anyway this release is well worth a look if you are interested in the more progressive side of this most extreme form of sound-making.