Clattering Creativity
Belgian duo Tangtype's album 'Flake Out' is a chilled, trippy mix of asymettric tunes that skitter, falter and buzz along. It's far from an immediate album, infact for the first few minutes of opener, 'Flake Out', you'll be checking your CD player for dodgy connections, but no, the spluttering repetition is infact intentional and continues throughout the album, interrupting the warm, glowing atmospherics to test the listener's attention. The ethereal vocals are swamped by the background clatter in tracks like, 'Qudra'. The group imagine their project like a tangram with overlapping sounds reconstructing themselves, which is certainly evident to the listener as the layers of instruments and vocals gliding effortlessly over each other. The album has such an organic feel that each offering seems to bleed freely into the next, especially as there is no conventional structure to any of the tracks, just a constant electronic fluttering pulse. Each track offers something new though, from the booming strings of, 'Lulled By A Rubbery Sweep' to the frenetic fuzz of, 'Unwinking Transmission'. The crackling sounds of, 'La Reine Du Sandwich' are the only which are actively unpleasant and might give the listener reason to mute their stereo at least through this aural asteroid field.
'Flake Out' is a truly curious album that is undoubtedly full of wondrous sounds, but it's simply too disconnected to actively listen to and functions best as a glowing background soundtrack, occasionally intriguing you with some new aural form enough to pay it active attention. If you're prepared for a creative journey that requires some effort to stick with, then give Tangtype a go, but be prepared to put some concentration in.