The first Fairhorns EP is a really refreshing musical direction for Matt Williams (aka Team Brick / Gnar Hest / Klad Hest)
A certain stain of the Team Brick EP "Hardon For Hadron" seeps out across the pixellated collective memory here... not musically but in it's overall vibe, perhaps because to me, the four tracks on this EP seem interlinked to tell a story set in a computer game world...
(REGEN THRUM)
A boy, part human part something else... he is embarking on a quest, setting out to face great dangers but all for the greater good of his people.
The first track has a ritualistic, ceremonial vibe... equatorial fires and bare feet stomping on the dusty ground, the rites of passage, a celebration and well wishers sending him off into the warm night all feather headed and dancing with a hint of sadness, the good kind of sadness that is there for a reason and fills you with pride.
He may be leaving them but he promises, reassures them with a divine wisdom that he will be back... and if he is not back, that it will all have been worthwhile anyway...
(NODENS)
and he's gone, into the forest and we pan up to the sky at the Clang! of a bell, electrics meeting the future meeting the past along a tangled phone-box connection...
and he's on his way! Fighting for PURE GOOD!
FUCK, it makes me want to D A N C E!!!!
A montage of our hero slyly and truthfully dodging nimbly around foes, wielding a his sword and dancing impertinently at them, a display, victorious and confident. The Gods smiling down in full colour completely saturated and glimmering.
A hulusi burst once again down the intergalactic telephone wires...
(ALMUT)
and here, setting up camp under a sky dripping full, yeah settling down to sleep under the stars it's really reminiscent here of our friends from Kansas, USA - Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk.
Those krauty rhythms buried in fuzziness, cacophonic joy growing from dreams and restless sleep, Gondry-esque. Piling on layer after layer.
The stars move across the sky and dawn breaks, spinning out the sound into mist.
(PINECONE)
and now dangerous territory looms ahead.
Inching forward, head held high, trepidation mounting but through the undergrowth he must thrash...
Out of sight now, here is the moment he was waiting for.
This is what he was sent here to achieve. Surrounded. Flaming arrows scattering all around.
A ship hovers overhead, as the scene becomes clear.
We're back in the ritual.
They begin to chant.
Valiant with his sword he won't back down.
Sacrifice.
It drops out and drops in at the same time, the otherworldly tongues...
Into the fire.
/
If Team Brick was white light, this is golden gloaming.
Having been witness to the first (and only thus far?) Fairhorns show and then having been witness to this EP, I hope 2011 sees MW doing a lot more with this project; these four tracks hold themselves among the best work he's ever created.
(really digging the artwork too.)
