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PRICE:
$48.00
PREORDER
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ARTIST
TITLE
Sound Sculptures Vol. 1
FORMAT
3LP

LABEL
CATALOG #
SS 026-28LP SS 026-28LP
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
11/1/2024

"Theo Parrish is a master crafter of a decidedly elusive brand of dance music, which is rare. Most sounds that identify as 'dance music' take bold measures to make their intentions known, but Parrish's sound -- an odd, insinuating kind of house music -- counts as more-suggestive and sly, with subtle textural rubs and beats that register as ellipses more than exclamation points. Parrish's is a message that arrives by way of coded whispers and hums. One of the byproducts of Parrish's elusiveness is that you have to work a little to hear him. This makes for a special kind of disconnect where newcomers might be left to wonder what Parrish partisans (and there are many) find to fetishize in tracks that play like little more than sketchy drafts or protracted sashays. The keys to the enterprise are patience and an abiding sense of a project at work -- a cunning, cumulative project that rewards immersion more than immediacy. All of which makes Sound Sculptures Volume 1 an ideal way to hear Parrish in his many moods. Parrish rarely lays off the EQ, and his tracks are all the better for it. The smallest adjustments of sound -- upticks of treble on the drums, changes of emphasis on a vocal, the accentuation and/or subtraction of pretty much everything in play at any given moment -- make what might sound like the simplest tracks spellbinding over time. And they lend Sound Sculptures a casual, easygoing sense of something always happening, as in 'They Say,' a sensuous soul song (with cooed vocals by MonicaBlaire) that sounds like IDM but way less mannered -- like Aphex Twin made by back-porch means. 'The Rink' amps up the energy to rollerskating speed (with a sample of Marvin Gaye) and 'Synthetic Flemm' (made with fellow Detroit weird-house hero Omar-S) enlists an aggressive acid line. But even at his most immediate, Parrish is graced by a sense of withholding that proves all the more generous and expressive over time." -- Andy Battaglia/Pitchfork