Cranes
Self-Non-Self

Back in 1989, the Shaw brothers, like a Bimby kitchen robot at the service of the most demanding consumers, were blending styles and languages with what their mother had given them, namely pure talent with no ifs and buts.
This Extended Play starts reasoning from the drum sounds of Joy Division's Closer while dispensing with the frantic drumming typical of post-punk, instead slowing down, deconstructing the rhythm, again, again, and again...
Everything is put through the sampler: reverse Akai-style drum rolls, reverbs with a tail that screams eighties but are so barely gayish that for a moment we almost shiver.
The start is already strong even if solely instrumental; indeed in "One from the Slum", you'll find traces of Japan and the aforementioned Joy Division, with sounds piling up in a futuristic arrangement.
But where is the genius? It lies in the bass lines, and where else? Or rather in the perfect/precarious balance the Cranes manage to infuse in the rhythm section. Measured and hypnotic, now strings plucked on electric with super compression attack, now pure tone synthesis FM and/or analog await the toll of the Kick drum that arrives punctually at the stroke of midnight.
"Joy Lies Within" begins just like that: a bass riff over an irregular rhythm (how many beats? who knows...), granitic distortions, alien(ated) voice and off we go.
In "Heaven or Bliss", strange guitar sounds never heard before can be heard (nylon+fuzz+cave echo? maybe...).
Then there’s the B-side where synthetic incursions counterpoint the calm of the bass guitar’s tonics, dry but with a bit of release to calm the waters. Alison's voice, like a lullaby, almost atonal, often in unison with her brother’s electric guitar, gives rise to dissonances that are more incestuous than ancestral, and therefore quite beautiful.
In track 4 "Beach Mover", the sister sings in a cave while Jim echoes her from a cavern not necessarily in sync with his darkabilly cords.
"Focus Breathe" already sounds cool as a name and it’s needless to add that here the tones become whispered yet still soar high.
In "Fuse", the electric guitar becomes thin and the vocals repeat, everything else is carved finely.
Fortunately, the album has the good length of just over twenty minutes, only the voice, always monolithic, monotimbric, and monogamous, risks slightly wearying the ear which up to this point has relished quite a treat.
Gothic for those in the know then, for those who love to flirt with alternative rock, for those with a penchant for electronics, for anyone who, in essence, loves good music at 360 degrees Fahrenheit.
The posthumous CD reissue is extended just enough with unreleased material still worthy.

Five straight, across all wheels. Buy it.