Critters Buggin
Stampede

Every now and then in the evening, I like to sit down and write. Imagination leaves traces of its existence by drawing landscapes and impressions to translate into words.

Sometimes it's already there, sometimes it's a bit more hidden. It's something that struck me who knows when, maybe at work, or in the more remote nuances of the day gone by. It's a tangle of details that press to come out, to manifest their secret message to the world and legitimize the possibility of a transmission. On these occasions, there is always a musical background. Music is important for writing: it helps me better focus on the details above to clear them from external disturbances. Some sounds are truly capable of dragging you into the depths of your creative being.

This is the case of these mysterious Critters Buggin, which, having arrived who knows how, have been frequenting my nighttime playlists for some time. Their music is a form of avant-garde-post rock with jazzy and heavily electronic tones. The album I recommend (the only one I have of theirs so far) is called "Stampede" and dates back to 2004. It's a sequence of instrumentals united by an intriguing mix of soft sounds and hypnotic rhythms. Personally, I was captivated right away, and it doesn't often happen with alternative artists.

What you'll find in the album is quite varied: it starts with the intense electronics of "Hojo", a great starter, and continues with the Japanese melodies of "Panang". "Cloudburst" is a stroll on a cloud of enchanted melodies, and "Toad Garden" revisits trip hop echoes from Bristol.
The key track of the album is titled "Persophone Under Mars"; it begins with piano dissonances that would gladly accompany the opening credits of a horror film. Shortly after, a panic-inducing jungle jazz emerges, and the tension rises until it explodes in a chorus of synthesized strings that deviate through retro atmospheres.
But there's also room for rock (after all, these guys are from Seattle, and the guy playing the synth on some tracks seems to know Pearl Jam very well, ed.) just listen to the distorted and caricatural fury of "Punk Rock Guilt".

The only downside of the album is the concluding "Open the Door of Peace". Cacophonous and ethnic in an annoying (and already from the title banal) sense, it's the only track I skip. But in the end, it doesn't matter much; writing about Oriental suggestions has never interested me.