This sure sounds like something that’s going somewhere but I guess that it’s not. Soft spots for music that sounds like the bit before everything kicks in but never does, and Ugly Animals live in that terrain: all mutely psychedelic dead-ends and blunt arpeggios. Conjured by one half of Brighton band MAP 71, its a project built around percussion – various rhythms on the kit, typically subject to some unusual processing, serve as both the frame and the subject, mild developments moving things a centigrade north or two over the three minutes or so of each track.
Such a focus on rhythm is reminiscent of Chk! Chk! Chk!, or that one really good Trans AM album where they let the drummer proper out his cage: but of course, everything here is way more minimal. The addition of voices – not vocals, but chants – suggests some unusual ritual; so to with the scratching violin; and if I’m not exactly sold on the synths (which add squelch but not charm) its hardly a deal-breaker.
Twisting Light From Flesh is a glorious cul-de-sac, a fitting detour from modern life. It neither bristles with nothingness (a la decent drone music) nor nourishes anything – save perhaps the part of the soul awake to the eternal loop of living: that is, that routine where by we are always en route but never getting anywhere. And if I’m getting a little vague and philosophical (and I am) well that’s Ugly Animals fault: its the nature of this particular ritual.
The album is brought to life on the 2nd of August via foolproof projects.
Daniel Alexander Hignell-Tully
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