Song: Imperplexituitum
Artist: The Groovy Coolies
Reviewer: Danny Foulkes
Choosing a band name is pretty important.
You don’t need to be a genius to know that Pig Destroyer or Cattle Decapitation are extreme metal bands, or that Rotting Christ or Impaled Nazarene probably ought not to be played at the Sunday School picnic. With that in mind, a name like ‘The Groovy Coolies’ probably conjures up something aiming at The UK or US Top 40 or at the aging hippy community. So you’d think.
Instead, what you get is a pretty solid hour of ambient darkwave that is well constructed, dense and even fairly inaccessible in places, but ultimately pleasing – if you are a fan of trip-hop, electronica and avant-garde music.
According to the review material, the album strap line reads like this:
‘Imperplexituitum: Not knowing you are in a constant, endless state of confusion.’
The album divides neatly into two sections, with the first half including processed and spoken vocals, and the second given over to entirely instrumental tracks. It would be fair to say that for newcomers to this genre of music, you may need several spins of this Groovy Coolies album before being able to truly appreciate everything that is going on. This is music for late at night, when that essay deadline is pressing upon you and the whole world outside is asleep, or for those days when the fog refuses to lift and darkness is starting to fall over crisp, frost-bitten fields. Listening to this complex and sometimes depressing soundscape is unlikely to leave you wanting to dance or sing, as the computer processed vocals and experimental mood-music ‘melodies’ don’t lend themselves to karaoke singalong. They will help you to mellow out and provide an aural canvas so you can work or just lie back in the darkness and fade into sleep. Abstract, alien landscapes with close synth harmonies and lots of dissonant noise make this something for the background rather than a choice for playing at parties. It is, as the album notes suggest, ‘A Writhing, Surging, and Seething of Subconscious Sounds’.
I would recommend this primarily to fans of the genre, but if you are fed up with Philip Glass or Steve Reich, or even if your thing is Black Metal and you want something a little different that isn’t likely ever to make X Factor, then give it a try.
If you are looking for singable, bright melodies and light then maybe you should heed the constantly repeated opening vocals of the first track, ‘Warning Sign’ – “You should not listen to this music”.
Final score- 2.5 out of 5
