Blond Redhead’s previous form has been that they have had no discernable form. Physical form, that is. Their wonderful and highly acclaimed last record, their 4AD debut and starting point for many ‘Misery Is A Butterfly’, was an ethereal drift, select flashes of sound caught in a net, an endless forging of soft textures. You couldn’t tell where one shape necessarily ended and another began. And yet without you really noticing, like the gradual aging of a face, masses formed, favourite features became indelible, hooks made themselves material allowing you to latch on and not let go. It was an absorbing listen to several substantial degrees. And so it with a certain degree of astonishment that you find yourself pinned against the wall under a hail of beats, swelling synthesised waves and amassing layers of disorientating off-centre sounds this time, mere moments into the record. If Kazu Makino’s delectably fragile vocal had not been conducting the whole affair you may well have had a panic attack.
Alright, so plates have not shifted so drastically, but the observatory has certainly tilted for ‘23’, which remains awesomely sublime yet drives itself forward with such purpose. The Cocteau Twins stay as an obvious reference point, but on ‘The Dress’ for instance in flood more weightless electronic elements with a sinister undertone, as though they were hypnotised by Orbital. On ‘SW’ we think of the playfulness of the KLF and the dark mellowness of Death In Vegas, on ‘Spring & Summer Fall’ and ‘Publisher’ we think of a world in which Moby was still creative and influenced heavily by Bowie, dotting every ‘i’ but leaving the ‘t’s uncrossed, and on ‘Top Ranking’ it’s Bjork collaborating with Four Tet and an imaginary string quartet. Elsewhere we hear Everything But The Girl, Cornelius, Kate Bush and more in a seamless swirl of influence. It’s a powerhouse of an album, though of course we use that word relatively. It’s all like getting close enough to something to realise it is real.