Blind Man’s Colour – Wooden Blankets (Music Review)
By Andrew Duncan • Mar 22nd, 2010 • Category: Categories, Lo-Fi, ReviewsBlind Man’s Colour
Wooden Blankets
Kanine Records
Rating: 2 out of 5
Links:
Blind Man’s Colour – http://www.myspace.com/weareblindmanscolour
Kanine Records – http://kaninerecords.com/
When All Night Radio released Spirit Stereo Frequency it sounded like psychedelic music being broadcast in space. With Blind Man’s Colour’s Wooden Blankets, it feels like a late ‘50s/early ‘60s radio station being broadcast at the bottom of the ocean.
If this was an instrumental or sparsely vocalized EP, Wooden Blankets would be brilliant. Their sonic structure bleeds through like rays of light through water molecules. But there is a lot of sonic edging and studio witchery that distorst and contorts their sound and it ends up being more annoying than it is effective.
Whereas Season Dreaming was more intriguing, it’s baffling how the two were developed at the same time. And having a more personalized, stripped down approach, it does not work to their benefit.
I don’t know why the album is not more like “We’re Treehouse Kids,” a song that wanders about like analog ghosts and is musically iridescent. But “Canoe Paddles” is like shoving something sour in your mouth. It’s a song that makes your ears itch. “Fantasy Coves” is a little better like a deranged lullaby.
If The Beatles worked at a small town carnival, Wooden Blankets might make sense. The sound trip twirls around like a Fellini movie if Ray Dennis Steckler was in control.
There is appeal in its lo-fi glory, but what it comes down to is that this EP has too many purposefully distracting elements to render it more annoying than it is artistic.
Andrew Duncan is a journalist who has migrated to the forces of academia. He has written for various publications including Chord, Heckler, Readyset...Aesthetic, and a vast array of alternative press contributions. When not roaming the streets of Indianapolis, he is either addicted to KXCI, making music, or striving to watch every film listed on IMDB.
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