Black Dice  
Creature Comforts
/fat cat; 2004/

 

 



more info:
www.fat-cat.co.uk

Last time i listened to a Black Dice record i remember feeling glad to hear that it still sounded like the recording of an alien tribe celebrating its god. The main reason why i like Black Dice and their labelmates Animal Collective is because the music they make is in the same time experimental and non-cerebral. Sure you can sit and listen to it and think of things to say when you meet your hip friends at the closest XPRMNTL café, like "oh did you hear the new Black Dice ? it reminds me of Göttsching, with a bit of Basinski here and there," but i find it much more enjoyable to sit and listen to it in wonder. It's far from being elitist music, and that's why i like it.

Creature Comforts sounds softer and more melodic than their previous releases, but it still has that randomness about it, you have no idea how long this line will last, there's no time structure, all you can do is listen innocently, with all your mind's shields down. Black Dice's success is mainly due to their deeply human approach of electronic music, using computers to make warm synthetic music. In Creature Comforts there are birds singing, dogs squealing, monkees screaming and bears growling, all in digital chaos. "Night Flight," the album's closer is Black Dice at its more focused and melodic during the first half of the song, and then everything goes wild, and Creature Comforts ends in a glorious sonic maelstrom.         

It's kind of record that is more like a listening experience than like an actual album, a cd documenting the experiments of a band making new music to be simply felt and listened to.       

-Barbara H

/june 1st 2004/