Click a link to one of Luke Wyattap “video mulch” music visuals on YouTube and you’ll understand what itap like to watch a video tape . In the campy static of a VHS player, scenes of , and flicker in and out, spliced almost subliminally with real shots of Wyattap workspace, a family photo, or his half-naked physique peering back at you.
As , it’s hard to tell which aspect of Wyatt’s work, if either,is supposed to take precedence: the music or the visual. (Even his recent features obscure video interludes.) Or more to the point: Does Wyattap music holds up without a visual aid? After all, we’ve gotten this far without talking about what Torn Hawk sounds like.
“Letap Cry And Do Push-Ups At The Same Time,” Wyattap debut for label Mexican Summer, is a strictly auditory affair. In the same vein of previous releases, the LP’s eight songs are, laid bare, unsettling loop tracks topped with electric guitars and synths solos. Thatap reductive, but true. There’s little variation in the course of a song, leaving precious few “A-ha!” listening moments aside from when a guitar comes in or changes a chord. One exception is “Return To The Pec Deck,” which pokes its head above the mechanical gloom a couple times for runs down a cloudy synth line.
Otherwise, “Letap Cry…” is chiefly an atmospheric album, a soundtrack to a collection of Wyattap unseen scenes. With its rainy tunnel reverb electric guitar riffs, “She Happens” could’ve championed any of Van Damme’s on-screen falls from grace. “Under Wolf Law” smacks of the unexpected dystopian ending of a campy sci-fi film, or maybe the waiting music while on-line for Space Mountain. Without a video, you’re in the director’s chair.
Wyatt excels at crafting these fascinating auditory moments. At its most captivating, the album brings to mind Boards of Canada’s alien world (“Afterprom” in particular), coaxing the listener into trying to place the origin in his spools of novel loops. Like a foley artist gone solo, Wyatt plays to these strengths on “Letap Cry…” and makes a case for himself as an unlikely protagonist. He isn’t interested in taking notes from a studio about making —he’d rather just do it himself. But with few hooks to latch onto (outside of those bloodied in the album’s inevitable video mulching), “Let’s Cry” can only hope to resonate as a cult hit.
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Dylan Owens is Reverb’s all-purpose news blogger and album reviewer. You can read more from him on his website, or the comment sections of WORLDSTARHIPHOP.
