Jana Hunter first caught my attention on the split LP she released with Devendra Banhart. With Lower Dens, she’s exploring fuller,more textured sonic territory, but the delicate touch evident on that 2005 is still very much in evidence.
The album’s title, apparently, is a reference to the band’s collective interest in transhumanism, and the subject matter of the songs, which deal with mankind’s relationship with technology. If this calls to mind Kraftwerk’s ‘Man-Machine’ then it’s entirely fitting. There’s certainly a mechanised heart to lead single ‘Brains’, a steel spinal column of motorik drums, over which lattices of vaporous guitars weave and reverb-heavy vocals are delivered with urgency but lie, part submerged in the mix. It’s a heady cocktail, and encapsulates what makes ‘Nootropics’ a compelling album.
Retro analogue drum machine sounds pump away, piston-like, against a chugging bass through ‘Stem’ while drawn out synths spiral through a swirl of spaced-out lead guitar, before swelling to a widescreen finale. The dreamy ‘Propagation’ marks a well-placed change of tone and tempo, and ‘Lamb’ moves into fractal electro-pop with a richly-textured shoegaze sensibility, like Slowdive covering Interpol remixed by Zola Jesus before it fades into an unexpected wash of distortion.
The layering of the guitars that drift, cloud-like, and the soaring vocals soaked in reverb have an organic quality that contrasts with the harsher synthetic sounds to produce a sound that’s balanced. Stylistically, there’s a balance, too: ‘Candy’ pulls together 80s electropop and skeletal post-punk and manages to cram in some hooks into the Joy Division-esque bleakness, while the two-part ‘Lion in the Winter’ brings the album’s Kraftwerkian metronomics to the fore amidst a swathe of synths. ‘In the End is the Beginning’ draws the album to a close and spreads over an enormous twelve minutes, a truly epic piece that meanders and explores a range of sonic territories while a simple bass drum pounds like a heartbeat beneath the scraping guitars and synth atmospherics and rumbling bass.
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‘Nootropics’ is a hugely ambitious album, but most importantly, it’s a genuinely unique work that combines exquisite songwriting with dark layers of multitextural sound to create a dense, smoggy atmosphere that’s utterly absorbing.
Lower Dens Online
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