Excepter Alternation

It has been about two years now, and I'm still getting over the Vacation EP. I could write about it for hours. I want to roll around in it and bury myself in its dense layers of slowly unfolding chaos. I've listened to all of Excepter's other material to date, but it leaves me wanting the impossible. I want more fucking Vacation, and I want it now.

I suppose it's my fault for having completely unrealistic expectations, as the band's very nature won't allow them to release another Vacation. After all, this is an act that prides itself on ripping open songs to find entirely new self-contained systems inside. Their musical philosophy requires revealing new patterns throughout the wake of the chaos they create. The results are usually both rewarding to listen to on an aesthetic level and fascinating on a theoretical level.

Even the bands structure won't allow the same sound for too long, as they exist as the true physical embodiment of their sound. Once they have put out a piece of music, the revolving door will spin, and members will be added/removed as needed. Their system of creating music is ripped apart and they must start over. (One wonders if this is their conscious decision.)

Gone are KA and Vacation era member, Semans, as well as founding husband-wife team Cook and Martin. With Alternation, we are listening to the current line up of Jon Nicholson, Nathan Corbin, John Fell Ryan, and Dan Hougland, all the same players from the Sunbomber EP. Because of the similarity in line up, the sound is quite similar to Sunbomber. What we have here is an Excepter that is much more approachable and more rooted in pop conventions, (although they remain at an arms length away from them, and they usually only exist as a launching pad.)

The album begins with "Ice Cream Van," revealing this stripped down Excepter as not too much unlike Throbbing Gristle. One is almost surprised when John Fell Ryan's vocals appear instead of Cosey Fanni Tutti's. The slow and now familiar drawl trades off with itself and other bizarre vocalizations over twisted synth-pop, (which is fairly straightforward for these guys.) Any comparisons too any other acts vanish, when the songs begin too dissolve.

When systems are cracked open or simply collapse in on themselves, the results are interesting, as in "Op Pop," which starts innocently, but dissolves into madness, the beat skipping and breaking under the bleeps and sputtering engine percussion.

"If I Were You (live)," also starts innocently enough with a synth beat, which slows down as soon as it is appears, conforming to the musicians system. The results are, for a while, as "catchy" as this band gets, the songs plodding along to the simple beat as Ryan mumbles along. Soon beautiful synth lines are adding, slashing and swooping their way through the rest of the sounds. The song then becomes woozy and starts to creak and collapse under its own weight, the beat and synthesizers, (now ugly,) firing off into all directions like fireworks, until the song eventually grinds to a halt.

This is the general trend, as we see songs dissolving from fairly normal starting points, often starting with somewhat conventional electro and hip-hop beats, as opposed to the bands earlier work, where the songs often began right in the thick of the mess. The results are still almost as fascinating to watch, and one can only wait to see who is voted off/onto the island next, and what aspects will vanish or be added. The results are guaranteed to be quite different as the band once again sheds its skin, always slithering forward.