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By: Mark Gomes
Article published: 16th Dec 08
Release: EP
To Cure: The hangover
What:
Waterfalls EP
Who:
Faux Pas
Where:
Here
Related links:
He Is Faux Pas blog / YouTube channel
With more records more readily available, and faster, even art pop music must react. As local production auteur Tim Shiel rightly knows, the future is free and high-definition; sounds are fast and supernaturalism is required. Like a sun-kissed David Holmes or space-shocked Eric Copeland, Shiel as Faux Pas is making some highly adaptive, attention-added electronica - tunes overflowing with sounds and finished as if in pure data mint. Heir to the Avalanches' upside-psyche Australian mix approach, his tunes are impressive elastic strands of plaited sense associations; extract of flashy disco, pastoral swoon and computer exploration.
New four track, Waterfalls EP, will get favourably meta-tagged as a Balearic dance album - listen harder though, and there's far more here than that buzz-term's come to shorthand. For a moment - before the pitched electronic percussion, pet-cute synth lines, anodized vocal and clipped Country strums begin - opener 'Chasing Waterfalls' sounds dead-set like Stereolab circa Mars Audiac Quintet. Then there's the breathtaking, melancholy break in 'Rose's Lament' from deep-funk, Presets-touched territory to fading and dreamy finger-picked guitar. Finally, the improvised 'Live from Doom' sounds like a Sega-version Headhunters. Mad shit and free.