|
|
|
Diamond Watch Wrists - Ice Capped at Both Ends
| Tinymixtapes |
|
Ice Capped at Both Ends, by the unfortunately named Diamond Watch Wrists, is one of three albums Warp Renaissance man Guillermo Scott Herren released almost simultaneously. Along with Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian (as Prefuse 73) and La Llama (from his Savath + Savalas moniker), each album was released within a month of one another. But while they were likely intended as a statement proclaiming the granddaddy of glitch-hop to still be at the top of his game, they have sadly ended up lending more fuel to the naysaying fire. The albums were problematic from the beginning: La Llama was a dry execution of his "world music"-influenced persona, while Ampexian regurgitated the P73 formula in smaller but more numerous burps. Both were met with very little in the way of positive press, and Ice Capped at Both Ends — this full-length collaboration with Hella’s Zach Hill — has barely registered a blip. Yet Diamond Watch Wrists is probably the most daring project he has attempted in years. He sings throughout the entire record over his trademarked skittering, mouse-mauling intensity, one that’s deftly matched by drummer Hill. It sounds the least like a Herren record, and that is a good thing. He is trying something new. Hill is a bizarre self-taught drummer, famous for his breathtakingly nimble feet and the fantastically complex time signatures he lays down on every project (and he gets around a lot). Zach could probably cover Metallica’s "Battery" and Don Caballero’s "New Laws" at the same time if you dared him to. He is able to keep up so well with every sliced and diced piece of fractured white noise and acoustic sample that you’d think he had Intel inside. You’d be wrong — this guy’s all natural. His skill is definitely impressive, and Herren’s desire to collaborate with him is especially notable....full text |
|
|
| Pitchfork |
|
Sometimes a blind first listen is best. Pinpoint the parties responsible, post-rave hero Guillermo Scott "Prefuse 73" Herren and drummer Zach "Hella" Hill, and you might expect Ice Capped at Both Ends to be a little more... antic. The latest Prefuse album, this year's Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian, took Herren's cut-and-paste computer editing to a new extreme in density. And Hella have long been a lazy namecheck for critics with a plate full of spazzy 21st century noise-punk unknowns. That pedigree would suggest an album of virtuoso digi-violence, riffs, and drums colliding and crumbling faster than your ears might care to process. Curiously enjoyable for a few surprised plays, Ice Capped drifts more than it jabs, built on low-impact, quasi-melodic drones and whispery indie rock harmonies. It may open with an agitated wash of cymbals and glitched-out voices, but "pastoral" is the easy-reach adjective that will likely crop up if/when the band is discussed. (Took me a few seconds after the album ended to realize the ambient bird-and-bug hum coming through my open windows wasn't some kind of unlisted outro.) As will the names of certain spectral-sounding, mimsy-voxed acts with zoology-based monikers, some of them also on Warp Records. (Naming names might be a bit cruel.)...full text |
|
|
| Dustedmagazine |
|
Commemorating a decade-long career of abundant and substantive music, Guillermo Scott Herren lives up to his reputation by releasing three full-length albums this spring, each under a different moniker. Under his most prominent alias, Prefuse 73, comes Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian, 29 songs worth of his patented skittering psych-hop. The on-going collaboration with Eva Puyuelo Muns, Savath & Savalas, moves to L.A.’s Stones Throw Records for La Llama. The basis of Catalan folk and jazzy Brazilian psychedelia works as an elegant antithesis to the beat-obsessed Prefuse. And to round out the trio, Herren once-again dislodges from his comfort zone by employing manic drummer Zach Hill as his songwriting partner, bringing to life Diamond Watch Wrists. Despite Herren’s penchant for productions strewn together from hundreds of momentary samples, he still often relies on the syncopated building block for nearly every rap-based production this side of 1979: the breakbeat. Zach Hill, on the other hand, is the breakbreat’s antichrist, and he very well may have never even so much as stuck a toe inside the pocket. He drums from pure adrenalized emotion, a trait undoubtedly derived from years of backing noise bands. And to ask him to do otherwise would neutralize his idiosyncratic appeal. So if this is the backbone for which Herren has to stretch his swaths of melodic, laptop-produced skin around, he’s up for quite the challenge. The counterbalance alone makes Diamond Watch Wrists an intriguing project....full text |
|
|
Go to "Diamond Watch Wrists " lyrics