Blogarhythms

All that talk of ghosts and music yesterday took on a whole new meaning after an intercontinental discussion with one of my closest homegirls last night. See, she was visited by a ghost this weekend… The ghost of a former lover which left her haunted in her own unique way. I’m not talking about a literal haunting by a disembodied spirit of course, but rather the kind of emotional specter that rattles the chains in ones brain after a chance meeting with a person who hurt you.

When faced with emotional turmoil of that sort I usually turn to music to cope. Being one of my best friends, with whom I share tons of stuff (including blogging about music) in common, of course she did the same. She even went so far as to blog her heartache healing playlist, which, quite unsurprisingly, featured Lauryn Hill’s “Ex Factor,” a song connected with my own bittersweet romantic experiences since the day in 1998 when I picked the The Miseducation of… tape up at a local record store, right at the top.

This reminder of my own longstanding use of music as an emotional coping mechanism got me thinking about a song I discovered earlier this week called “Dusty Records” by four-man French production troupe Depth Affect featuring LA-based indieground rapper Awol One on vocals. It’s not only about the very subject of using music as an emotional crutch, but it proved a heart-string-puller in it’s own right for the way it mirrored my own experiences with and feelings about the individual who will always be inextricably connected to the song “Ex Factor” in my mind as well.

One of only two vocal tracks (the other being “Street Level” featuring Subtitle on microphone duties) on Hero Crisis, Depth Affect’s brand new sophomore release, “Dusty Records” finds Awol exhaling introspective, self-deprecating, emotionally vulnerable lyrics about how his deep crates can provide both the salve which soothes and the salt which irritates his emotional wounds in a dry, Tom Waits-esque croon/rap style. While the track itself — comprised of claps, resonant kicks, sub bass, acoustic guitar, chimes, synths, electronic organ, reverb-drenched piano and subtle clicks & pings — sounds like an amalgam of Folk, Country-Blues, Soul, Chamber-Pop, Prog-Rock and Lap-Pop/IDM over Boom-Clap beats.

Depth Affect “Dusty Records” feat. Awol One

Faced with the fact that his record collection all too often reminds him of his heartaches, Awol eventually comes to the conclusion that he’s got plenty of records which should provide him comfort, enjoyment and emotional release. The dichotomy of being emotionally invested in crates filled with “records to dance to” which played out across the chorus of “Dusty Records” which is one that those of us who intimately tie ourselves to our favorite music know well. It’s also a metaphor for the Hero Crisis album itself, the majority of which is made up of mostly instrumental beats aimed at making heads nod and bodies rock more-so than tearing out heart and plucking nerves.

Stuttery vocal samples, drum-machine claps, pitch-bent synth-sweeps, blips-n-bleeps, synth-bass, grainily pixelated sawtooth synths, and chest-thumping kick-drums are common sounds throughout the record. It’s a sonic palatte that puts Depth Affect in the company of beatmakers like Prefuse 73, Dabrye, Modeselektor , Ratatat & Copy, and shares some commonality with Daft Punk-member Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo’s recent work on Sébastien Tellier’s Sexuality as well as the output of Thom Yorke and his band Radiohead.

The title track — which melds ’80s New Wave with modern Electro & 8-Bit sounds — “Girls Math” & “Dorothea Land” — which give baroque Pop chipmunk-voiced Boom-Clap and Timbaland-meets-Dubstep makeovers respectively — and the vocoder-heavy Psyche-Grime of “Tumble Tug” are all outstanding. But “Radish Field,” which turns an EPMD acapella into near incomprehensible word-mush over staccato synth-bass, chopped up acoustic guitar strums and slick ’80s-dance-style edits, is my hands-down favorite of the more beat-centric, not-quite-vocal tracks on the disc.

Like Awol One’s titular “Dusty Records” Depth Affect’s Hero Crisis brought up memories of emotional pains from my past and made me want to forget those pains, as well as the discomforts of the present, and just dance. Such is the importance of music though; that it can assist us in memorializing our past experiences, make us forget the troubles we’re experiencing right now, open old wounds, and heal fresh cuts even as they happen, all at the same time.