EARTHBOUND, RELIEF IN ABSTRACT
Fortune Howl’s sonic blasts borrow heavily from modern glitch and ‘90s psychedelic revival, but Bryce Linde takes pains to ensure that the two genres don’t mix. Think Mercury Rev: standard pop songs laid atop full orchestral compositions, both being in and of themselves complete, both sounding wonderful together but never really combining, subjecting the listener to the tension of listening to two songs at once; Fortune Howl takes this concept into the computer generation and does it extraordinarily well. Also, he never sounds anything like Mercury Rev. Linde’s hooky vocal melodies are actually too rare on this album, something I never thought I would say about an electronic record. “A Terrible Machine” and “Echo the Sun” both start sloppily, lost somewhere in blue screen hell until everything pulls together… temporarily. Linde uses effects on his voice but he uses them appropriately: he keeps the pitch shifting and vocoding to a minimum, only really using them as catalysts for a song’s second or third descent into chaos. The instrumental tracks are all phenomenal as well, tweaking live guitar parts, keyboard and prepared piano segments, simple oscillators, live and electronic drums, bad news vocal samples, each of them cut to bits and bent to Linde’s will.
By John Julius
