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Tex La Homa: Dazzle Me with Transience
When you first decide to start writing music reviews, you figure it will be fun. Youll get to sing the praises of the bands that you have the good taste to love even though theyre underground (cough Boyracer cough), and youll get to make your friends laugh by trashing the losers who send in a CD-R of their Marley-and-Mary-Jane-(not-necessarily-in-that-order)-influenced guitar meandering. Youll get to discover fresh new faces on the Toledo music scene and finally get back at that fucking local band that refuses to hook your band up with a show even though you set them up with, like, three shows last month. But the sad truth is that youll only end up getting 2 or 3 CDs per year that you actually love; and no matter how jaded you are and how complicated your haircut is, youll find it hard to actually muster enough venom to write scathing reviews of the 3,500 other albums you get to review. This is because the vast majority of albums released, across major or indie labels, across genre, across era, across all boundaries, are simply mediocre. In this wasteland is a category of music that I call Pleasant. Pleasant music is listenable, although a better word might be bearable. Theres nothing really embarrassingly bad about it yet nothing particularly good or memorable either. Its difficult to criticize pleasant music seeing as how theres nothing in it that stands out as objectionable; but really, this is the music thats most deserving of criticism, because nothing stands out at all. It settles comfortably into the background where it can be safely forgotten. Its wallpaper. Dazzle Me With Transience is Pleasant. Every song sounds the same, a looped and loping beat, strummed or arpeggiated squeaky-clean guitars, and somnolent and reverberating mumbles. Tex La Homa is supposedly influenced by electronica or breakbeat or whatever the kids call robot music these days (which essentially means that he loops hip-hop beats on his computer and plays guitar over them, something perhaps exciting when it was first done 20 years ago, but with the proliferation of cheap home recording software like CoolEdit and ProTools, its not particularly innovative or fresh anymore). But heres the real secret recipe for the Tex La Homa sound: take a Flying Saucer Attack album, particularly Further, (because its the only FSA album I own and thus the one that Im basing this whole hypothesis on), remove anything that makes Flying Saucer Attack interesting (the layers of feedback, the environmental sounds, and, uh, songs), and you end up with Tex La Homa. The vocals are especially similar, though this may be a coincidence, since in both cases, the vocals are the default cant really sing male vocals, making up for the lack of projection or range with significant doses of reverb. But let me reemphasize, the vocals arent bad theyre pleasant. There is exactly one track on this album that I was excited about hearing more than once, and that is the My Bloody Valentine-lite splendor of Launch, in which Tex La Homa discovers the existence of distortion. You might not think its hip to get excited by the simple prospect of distortion, but after crawling through the desert of slow-motion, sleepy-time indie-pop for 40 minutes, you welcome any oasis. The best
thing I can say about this album is that it contributes to a relaxed environment
without creating any distractions. So, if you want a CD to put on while you
read, or do laundry, or make love to someone easily impressed by your music
critic credentials, this might do the trick. But if you want a CD to actually
listen to, you should seek out something a little less pleasant and a lot more
exciting.
This album can be purchased at Superglider Records LEFT OFF THE DIAL's Tex La Homa page About LOTD Contact/Staff Advertise Home All content © LEFT OFF THE DIAL 2001-2005. All rights reserved. |
