TURNPIKE: HUMANS FIND PATTERNS (REVIEW)
February 9th 2007 10:32
TURNPIKE
HUMANS FIND PATTERNS
(2006; MEDICAL)
RATING:
TRACK LISTING: 1) Do The Broken / 2) Xxxxxx / 3) Destination Of The Species / 4) I Burn / 5) Monuments / 6) Memories Are Faking / 7) Stretching Out Like Arms / 8) Bad Luck For Black Cats
WARNING: THIS ALBUM REVIEW CONTAINS AN AWFUL AMOUNT OF SUPERLATIVES AND HYPERBOLIC STATEMENTS THANKS TO SAID ALBUM’S ABILITY TO ALTER THE FABRIC OF TIME, SPACE & CULTURE. TURNPIKE BROKE THE RATING SYSTEM. BASTARDS.
With all these indie punk bands bubbling up out of Brisbane's incestuous quagmire—bands with their roots planted firmly in muddy punk aggression, but with branches fumbling towards the life-giving suns of art, jazz, noise, psychedelia, and the once dirty word ‘ambition’—it looks like the Brisbane underground is finally coming of age.
No album captures the zeitgeist more than Turnpike's Humans Find Patterns…. Turnpike have been kicking around the local scene for even longer than I have (since 1993), and much more noticeably. But it’s with this album that their decade-plus of experimenting with interesting guitar sounds and skewed song structures has really paid off. Turnpike are a shiny beacon for other like-minded bands to steer towards like drunken ships, and this album might be the best thing to come out of Brisbane since, I don’t know, some Saints album or something.
The reason Humans Find Patterns… is so darn exciting is that it sounds like nothing that’s come before. Sure, there are some of the usual indie touchstones (Sonic Youth, Fugazi, Shellac, et al) but Turnpike recall those bands without ever sounding like they’re apeing them. From the rusty knife angularity of “Do The Broken” to the desperate tumultous godhead that is “Bad Luck For Black Cats”, this is some seriously radical stuff. It’s a work of breathtakingly taut, raw, and original racket that is probably too ahead of its time for its goodness to sink in just just yet, but like all worthwhile things, it deserves time.
With Chris Bryant’s agile, white jazz drumming; Tim Evans’s surging bass; and Adam King’s angular, roiling guitar, Turnpike make melodic sense out of what seem like untuned instruments, unconnected musical parts, and underpants—slotting everything together like Captain Beefheart if Captain Beefheart was a mathematical genius or lego champion. But thanks to their restraint and keen ear for structure, this ain't hard to wrap your noggin around, and the way the band shifts from hairy feedback to clanging syncopation and sinewy, weaving grooves is astounding. What really gets me is how darn visceral and rockin’ it all sounds, with feral guitar workouts and hearty punk-rock shoutalongs that are so immediate and engaging they might just burst into your living room and fuck shit up with anger, bitterness, mathematics, and science. This is simply miles ahead of their already accomplished early work in terms of aggression and craft, sounding perpetually raw and alive, the band forging high energy, totally original rock out of their own chaotic maelstrom. There are well written tunes in them thar hills, and discovering them is what makes this such an exciting and enduring listen. You can even dance to it.
Looking at this album as a whole may be akin to staring at the sun, or seeing the face of god, so I'll describe a few individual tracks. “Xxxxxx” is a slinky, minimal hypnotiser interrupted by nimble jabs of guitar and drums; “I Burn” is clanky, almost southern-fried funk that gains depth as it accumulates accents around a central groove; “Monuments” barely manages to contain its squirelly, kinetic guitar action until the tune succumbs gloriously to its own spastic collisions; and “Stretching Out Like Limbs” has a triumphant, marching lilt that bleeds out into epic and expansive beauty.
Humans Find Patterns gets five stars because that is the upper limit of my deficient rating scale. The truth is, there aren’t enough goddamn stars in the inky night sky to bestow upon it. But Humans Find Patterns… doesn’t need any crappy rating system to validate it, and from their lyrics, this band seem keen on bringing down systems of control: first my rating system, tomorrow the world. The only thing I can salvage is that music like this elevates everything near it to dizzying new heights, making all the other high ratings look better and the lower ones not feel so bad cuz they’ve been beaten by the best.
Humans Find Patterns is why I love music, Brisbane, and life, ladies ‘n’ gentlemen. Thankyaverymuch.
***
LINKS
Turnpike's Myspace
Turnpike MP3s at MP3.com.au
Turnpike Page at Dispatch Operator
IMAGES
Humans Find Patterns…
(album cover used under fair dealing)
*images on this page were taken from the following Dispatch Operator Page:
Turnpike
HUMANS FIND PATTERNS
(2006; MEDICAL)
RATING:
TRACK LISTING: 1) Do The Broken / 2) Xxxxxx / 3) Destination Of The Species / 4) I Burn / 5) Monuments / 6) Memories Are Faking / 7) Stretching Out Like Arms / 8) Bad Luck For Black Cats
Humans Find Patterns... (2006)
With all these indie punk bands bubbling up out of Brisbane's incestuous quagmire—bands with their roots planted firmly in muddy punk aggression, but with branches fumbling towards the life-giving suns of art, jazz, noise, psychedelia, and the once dirty word ‘ambition’—it looks like the Brisbane underground is finally coming of age.
No album captures the zeitgeist more than Turnpike's Humans Find Patterns…. Turnpike have been kicking around the local scene for even longer than I have (since 1993), and much more noticeably. But it’s with this album that their decade-plus of experimenting with interesting guitar sounds and skewed song structures has really paid off. Turnpike are a shiny beacon for other like-minded bands to steer towards like drunken ships, and this album might be the best thing to come out of Brisbane since, I don’t know, some Saints album or something.
The reason Humans Find Patterns… is so darn exciting is that it sounds like nothing that’s come before. Sure, there are some of the usual indie touchstones (Sonic Youth, Fugazi, Shellac, et al) but Turnpike recall those bands without ever sounding like they’re apeing them. From the rusty knife angularity of “Do The Broken” to the desperate tumultous godhead that is “Bad Luck For Black Cats”, this is some seriously radical stuff. It’s a work of breathtakingly taut, raw, and original racket that is probably too ahead of its time for its goodness to sink in just just yet, but like all worthwhile things, it deserves time.
With Chris Bryant’s agile, white jazz drumming; Tim Evans’s surging bass; and Adam King’s angular, roiling guitar, Turnpike make melodic sense out of what seem like untuned instruments, unconnected musical parts, and underpants—slotting everything together like Captain Beefheart if Captain Beefheart was a mathematical genius or lego champion. But thanks to their restraint and keen ear for structure, this ain't hard to wrap your noggin around, and the way the band shifts from hairy feedback to clanging syncopation and sinewy, weaving grooves is astounding. What really gets me is how darn visceral and rockin’ it all sounds, with feral guitar workouts and hearty punk-rock shoutalongs that are so immediate and engaging they might just burst into your living room and fuck shit up with anger, bitterness, mathematics, and science. This is simply miles ahead of their already accomplished early work in terms of aggression and craft, sounding perpetually raw and alive, the band forging high energy, totally original rock out of their own chaotic maelstrom. There are well written tunes in them thar hills, and discovering them is what makes this such an exciting and enduring listen. You can even dance to it.
Looking at this album as a whole may be akin to staring at the sun, or seeing the face of god, so I'll describe a few individual tracks. “Xxxxxx” is a slinky, minimal hypnotiser interrupted by nimble jabs of guitar and drums; “I Burn” is clanky, almost southern-fried funk that gains depth as it accumulates accents around a central groove; “Monuments” barely manages to contain its squirelly, kinetic guitar action until the tune succumbs gloriously to its own spastic collisions; and “Stretching Out Like Limbs” has a triumphant, marching lilt that bleeds out into epic and expansive beauty.
Humans Find Patterns gets five stars because that is the upper limit of my deficient rating scale. The truth is, there aren’t enough goddamn stars in the inky night sky to bestow upon it. But Humans Find Patterns… doesn’t need any crappy rating system to validate it, and from their lyrics, this band seem keen on bringing down systems of control: first my rating system, tomorrow the world. The only thing I can salvage is that music like this elevates everything near it to dizzying new heights, making all the other high ratings look better and the lower ones not feel so bad cuz they’ve been beaten by the best.
Humans Find Patterns is why I love music, Brisbane, and life, ladies ‘n’ gentlemen. Thankyaverymuch.
***
LINKS
Turnpike's Myspace
Turnpike MP3s at MP3.com.au
Turnpike Page at Dispatch Operator
IMAGES
Humans Find Patterns…
(album cover used under fair dealing)
*images on this page were taken from the following Dispatch Operator Page:
Turnpike
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