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Landing, "Gravitational IV"
Those present at Brainwaves on that November Saturday afternoon witnessed a new, delicious phase of Landing. With their bassist Dick Baldwen currently absent, drummer Daron Gardner has returned to bass (his original instrument), leaving machines and effects employed as the creators of rhythms. This record is very similar to that performance and parallels Slowdive's unpopular (at the time) Pygmalion in more than one way.
Here I was thinking Landing had whipped out an electro-charged set especially for the Brainwaves crowd, as I generally didn't think most people came to Brainwaves to hear their shoegazing acid pop rock.
The band's last album Sphere had songs named "Gravitational 1," "Gravitational 2," and "Gravitaional 3." Gravitatioanl IV is the name of this record with songs named "Gravitational III pt. II," "Gravitational V," and "Gravitational VI." Landing, I feel, sell themselves short by taking this approach in recycling the name as such, as this record sounds neither like outtakes from the Sphere sessions (which they claim) nor at 44 minutes does it feel like an EP. The variety of the six songs are wide enough to consider this more than just a simple EP.
Like Slowdive's final statement, on Gravitational IV, Landing tackle new approaches most fans are probably not used to. Dreamy dub is the framework for the "Each Man for Himself," which opens the record. It's a big change in their sound but it's still them. It's pure analogue bliss as no digital resembling sounds can be identified. Adrienne's faint voice can be heard whispering the opening of "Gravitational V," heavily treated with echoing delays that offset the pastoral guitar echoes, but this doesn't last. Over the course of this ten minute long bit, everything takes a turn towards the dark. As ominous drums enter, the guitars become more distorted, grainy, and bleak. The pleasantries of the earlier part give in towards something meaner and heavier. Never underestimate the shoegazing rock kids' abilities to bring the sort of doom that could make any costume-clad cretins look like clowns.
So the build on "Gravitational V" cuts suddenly to a sub-woofer friendly rumble as the third song on this side, "Sunlight," provides the peaceful and pretty stuff Landing fans have waited for: looped guitar echoes and angelic airy vocals are reminiscent of that Slowdive that everybody's heart melted to. The beauty of the vinyl-only format is that at some point it's got to be listened to on a stereo system, unless somebody's got one of those Mickey Mouse players with one speaker and I doubt anybody would want to subject their expensive vinyl to a cartridge that rough.
Side B's "Scenes Upon the Trees" is one of Landing's staple patient pop tunes with Daron taking the lead vocals while the driving drums behind "Gravitational III pt. II" is a bit like a low-fi hybrid between kraut and drone. While I love it, I'm guessing that if (and only "if," because I still don't buy it completely) this is a song truly tossed from the Sphere record it was probably because it is almost too similar to a lot of bands Landing has been known to be friends with, as well as tour and play with. After some more dissonant guitar play, Landing bring back the driving energy introduced at the beginning and wraps it in a full band song: "Gravitational VI" closes the record but in a way familiar to past records with the steady drums and quivering vintage synths we all have grown to expect.
I'm glad that people stuck around for their set. This album, like their set, is too good to go by unappreciated because of its limited nature, its format, and availability.
As a side note, to their street cred, Gravitational IV now makes them labelmates with Troum, and the guy who runs Equation now does the Organum site here on Brainwashed.
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