More Future Suffering - (Unsend/Untitled)
(Personal Escape 2016)
Despite the project's name, More Future Suffering's ghostly lo-fi atmosphere is quite suited to the Midwestern weather of the present, a chilly Autumn shower of late-90s emo riffage that's as comforting as the rattle of rain on vinyl siding, tacit guitar phrases forming hilly protrusions in a cheesecloth veil of reverb. The solo outfit's latest venture, (Unsend/Untitled), takes the form of a chapbook left on the bus stop's bench, its construction paper pages bound with a strand of red ribbon and covered with post-rock prose poems. The tape's untitled opener rolls the wistful indie-pop simplicity of Suicide Squeeze Records' earliest pressings into a Play-Doh sphere in soft palms, a compact ball of dreamy haze that appears textureless, but is eerily gritty and squash-able to the touch. Blustering acoustic guitar chords float past one another like languid clouds on their morning commute, yawning Major 7ths curling up next glistening add9s. From a picnic blanket below, a single snare surveils their migration, imagining a sky full of avian Michelin Men.
Track 2 kneads the Play-Doh into crust while the snare naps in the shade. Tufts of chords are spun into threads of buzzing ambience, knit into a sweater dotted with fingerpicked nubs. This pullover is later tossed into the dryer on the following cut as about 40 cents worth of loose change rattles around in the spin cycle. The bathroom floor rumbles to the beat of a somber freak-folk groove. 12-minute outro "Sailor Song" captures the faint howls of distant construction equipment descending on the nearby stripmall as the afternoon sky fades into darkness.
A sleepy throwback to Sentridoh's Winning Losers and Modest Mouse's Sad Sappy Sucker, (Unsend/Untitled) is an aural space heater that oscillates, leaking nostalgic vibrations into the living room air.
