Hybridization and experimentation in music will always open doors for questions: Does the machine have a soul? Can the robot feel? Does the extra terrestrial speak English? At least these are the questions being asked on Cut Back, the long-awaited new tape from NYC-phreak outfit Video Daughters. Having seen the coming and going of several other members over the past five years, the current iteration, consisting of Mike Green (Mezzanine Swimmers) and Ronnie Gonzalez (The Peopling) incorporates chaotic, though catchy, instrumentation, and fervent vocals, over the unwavering cool of mechanized drums. Each track on the tape would seem to pin an upheaval to a constant, an answer to an inquiry. The brooding bass and enigmatic, quivering guitar on opener “Shakedown” creates its own mystery and solves it. Ever-curious arpeggios and indecipherable scrawl over the neck of a guitar, while bass and drum machine tick on seemingly endless loop like the life-giving bellows of an iron lung. The meditative-haze-turned-anthemic-dance-banger “Bored Of Echo,” carries over into fleshed-out chords and incensed, effected vocals on “Signal Hill,” solving a problem; if you are bored with it, “Ignore the echo.” It’s at once dazing, almost disorienting, and yet wholly infectious, and you find a tone set for the remainder of things—the uncomfortable and avant-garde squawks and squeals strewn onto wholesome and pleasing harmony.
These are songs into which a lot of introspection went. They would seem to ponder humanity’s existence on Earth, Earth’s existence in space, space’s existence in the infinitude of human brain synapses. The small facing the unfathomable. By midway tracks “Cool Ranch Christ” and “Ouija Kids,” crunching noise and dissonant skree have become the standard, weaving in and out of gratifying downstrums of electric guitar, like a cool reconciliation of weird and normie cultures. However, by Cut Back’s end, the experimental background of Video Daughters sees more spotlight, with the slowed, sludging pace of “Paper Saints,” and the cool tremolo of closing track “Sleep Study.” It’s as if to suggest that all this soul-seeking and overthinking will only lead to obscurity and feeling overwhelmed. Maybe just like this review.
Cut Back is out now via Already Dead Tapes.