Wednesday 24 February 2021

Mrs. Dink - Death by Misadventure (2019)

 



This is my third helping of Mrs. Dink, and one which would seem at least as resistant to description as the previous two - or at least resistant to description which isn't me either repeating myself or talking bollocks. Death by Misadventure is techno, or possibly dubstep, or possibly some other variant I've never heard of, but an interpretation which doesn't quite repeat anything else I recognise - not lacking a formula but definitely fucking around with the established recipe.


Leaving aside whatever may be suggested by either the cover or titles such as Batshit Crazy and This is Gunna B Lit, beyond the pounding beats and trippy squiggles of electronica, I found this album had me thinking about landscape the more I listened, and specifically Islamic landscape, places with mosques and a lot of sand. I gather Mrs. Dink either served or serves in the US forces, which immediately makes me think of Afghanistan for possibly unfortunate reasons, so I'm tempted to wonder if she might have soaked up some of the ambient noise of civilisations beyond our own bubble; and if it isn't the case, that's at least how this music sounds to me. We have the familiar pulse, and throb, and of course the hi-hat doing something approximately familiar, but the rest seems to come from some non-western setting, melodies which weave a backdrop rather than pick out a tune; and while you could certainly dance to it, that's not all it does. At times it makes me think of Muslimgauze - although its nothing like so insular or obsessive - or Konstruktivists' Black December album.

Of course, this may all be just me and the sounds on this album just happen to be what came out of a black box on such and such a day, so I don't suppose it makes a lot of difference. Whatever the case may be, it's a lovely bit of work.

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