Sightings - Through The Panama (Load)
4/5
By: Charlie Potter
Deconstructing convention before your very ears, it doesn't take long to realise that the general sound of Through The Panama is a bloody amazing one.
But forget the 'general sound', this is just an incredible album. Sightings have existed on the periphery of my consciousness for a while - thought about buying their 3rd album Absolutes out of curiosity but didn't get round to it, thought about getting their 4th album Arrived in Gold when it came out in 2004, didn't get round to it, missed their last album because I wasn't paying attention to Fusetron, and the album didn't seem to get much press, and now, now I am sick to the stomach. This hurts me, it really does. Needles to say I will be working my way back through the albums. Upon hearing this, you will too.
This album, oh this album... perhaps far more deserving of the title Washing Machine than the fantastic 1995 Sonic Youth album of the same name, this album chunders you around, beats you in the head, washes your clothes and bruises you up in the best possible way (that way being metaphorically, so as to avoid the physical pain). There is something so exciting about this sound coming from a three piece rock band, something so simple it is as if they've come from a very familiar starting point and then leaped into an abyss. And the music gains a lot from it - the familiarity grounds the music and makes it so much more of a clearly directed way of making noise.
It may surprise some of you that this album is produced by a certain Mr. Andrew Wilkes Krier, that's right, Andrew W.K.. In that case it might surprise you to know that Andrew W.K. has been making noise for years, and was once even a member of Wolf Eyes. That should make you think a bit longer about where Andrew W.K. is coming from. And he's done a good job, from what I have heard of the older Sightings albums, Andrew's really brought out the separate elements, the vocals are certainly much more at the fore, which is great, and it's really nice to hear all the separate instruments playing really crusty noise, and with a vocalist clearly over the top, it's almost like hearing Black Dice with a vocalist. More accurately, it's like early Black Dice without vocals, crossed with new Black Dice, with vocals. There is even a sort of similarity to Liars here. But Sightings still clearly come from a much more traditionally noisy background. The sound is much more reminiscent of Aaron Dilloway, Prurient... it even sounds vaguely power electronics.
They are certainly getting the best out of some old pedals clipping, thudding, jittering all about the place here. I mean, it's not really as simple as people playing instruments in an unconventional manner, a lot of that is happening as well but what Sightings do would be by no means possible with a lot of technology that has only really existed for 20 or 30 years, which in the scope of musical technology isn't very long.
You know that thing that happens when you initially like that tracks at the beginning of an album and the tracks at the end, and then you bridge the gap? Well, that has just happened for me. Through The Panama is a truly consistent album and I am overjoyed with it. For newcomers to noise, or people who want to bridge the gap between noise and Sonic Youth, this is where to start.
Stream two tracks from 'Through the Panama' HERE.
Artists in this article: Sightings
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