Humcrush - Rest at Worlds End (Rune Grammofon)
4/5
By: Doug McNaught
Well, this is the first time I'd ever listened to Humcrush, and my head almost exploded. Recorded live from various concerts thoughout their native Norway, Rest at Worlds End is the third release from duo Ståle Storløkken and Thomas Strønen and displays more depth and . Blending electronica and improvisational jazz, this album is best described as a cross between Miles Davis and a robot with flatulence.
The first track, 'Stream', starts off with elastic, free jazz rhythms with electronic farts being expelled back and forth. It's a track to get make you sit up and pay attention right from the get go, and believe me, it's like having your sphincter probed by R2D2. Sadly, for most of this track there is no groove to be found and that puts me both off balance and on my guard. However, planted right next door, 'Edingruv' is a world away from 'Stream' with its relaxed tempo, beautiful beats, and soothing synthesisers at times reminiscent of Mogwai, gently leading us to 'Rest at Worlds End', the track the album is titled after. Combining erratic drumming, Middle-Eastern trills and scales and flowing synthesisers that ooze and punctuate the atmosphere, the song becomes increasingly calming and eerie. It is here that the duo begins to build up their strange alien landscape of sounds that sculpt the album. In the moving track 'Solar Sail', this is brought to maximum effect and with softer percussions, gentle glacial droning and the occasional tubular bell, this song sounds more like an instrumental b-side from Bjork's Vespertine.
At times, the album verges on the classical. If any of you readers ever watched Disney's Fantasia, you might remember Stravinky's 'The Rite of Spring', which is the dinosaur part where they're all dying of thirst and hunger? Well, 'Ghost Dance' is kind of like that, just with drum beats. A discordant synthesiser drones throughout the song accompanied by shakers, light beats and bells.
The album doesn't slow to a halt though, and there is still much more fire to be found. 'Steam' is a track that I can almost rock out to. One of the highlights of the album for me, this track is distinguished by its wonderful jazzy drum rolls that drive the song with more energy than a Snickers bar. 'Bullfight' is a return to the opening track's unpredictability and lightening fast fire-offs that leave the listening gasping for breath while lying in a pool of their own sweat - and it's only 54 seconds long.
All in all, Rest at Worlds End is an experiment, a painting, a landscape, a poem, a stream of consciousness and a really hard Sudoku puzzle. It's an understatement to say that perhaps I don't really understand this music and that Humcrush aren't as accessible as perhaps one would like, but they definitely have something worth hearing, and thankfully this rather complex album has a lot to offer.
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