GNOOMES

Reminds us of:

My Bloody Valentine, Neu! The Chemical Brothers, Cocteau Twins, Slowdive, Roykssop, Faust, Death in Vegas, Boards of Canada, Sonic Youth, Loop

Links to music in blue.

I’ve always been a fan of music that you can get lost in. One minute I’m focussing on a task with music on in the background, and the next that music has completely enveloped me, and I’m lost in some beautiful cacophony and completely detached from everything. Pure escapism in a hectic world. That moment comes very early for me in Gnoomes latest album ‘MU!’

The band come from Russia and are signed to the wonderful Rocket Recordings, home of Josefin Ohrn and the Liberation (who I’ll be writing about on this site soon) and other artists such as Teeth of the Sea, Lay Llamas, Goat and the Utopia Strong, the experimental minimalist collaboration between (Snooker) Steve Davis, Michael J York and Kavus Torabi.   

MU! was released last month. Opening track Utro heads straight into ‘Loveless’ My Bloody Valentine territory, which quickly grabs your attention before shifting into early Chemical Brothers  with Sword in the Stone and Irma. Next up is the brilliant Glasgow Coma State and Sine Waves are Good for your Health.  By this stage by the way, anyone or anything trying to get my attention is out of luck – I’m completely lost! The rest of the album is equally impressive, more epic noisiness follows on Ursa Major and Progulka, before the music really gets its chance to stretch its legs on How do you. The closer Feel Now brings you back into reality, probably a good thing, and it’s a noisy little beast.

I was blown away by this album when I first put it on, and as is often the case with me decided to plough through their back catalogue. Their first album Ngan! was released in 2015 and only has four tracks, although two of those are about 15 minutes long. Pleasingly it’s also great, particularly on the long tracks Roadhouse and My Son, both lovely bits of tripped out Neu style Krautrock, or Komische, as I should probably call it. In between these two epics are Myriads and Moognes, the latter of which has that some great dirty fuzz overlaid with that shimmering guitar so reminiscent of the Cocteau Twins and more recently Slowdive’s eponymous comeback album.

Ngan! Was followed in 2017 by ‘Tschak! – again very good although not to the standard of the two albums that it sits alongside. Super Libido Awake starts the album off with aplomb, a noisy loop that gently builds in the background. Maria follows – starting like Brittle Head Girl by Loop before morphing into something that Royksopp might have put together. After another couple of synth led numbers we get the title track, all very Chemical Brothers style techno. In the Park is a nice Reich inspired piece and the rest of the album continues happily in the electronic vein.    
​
Unfortunately I missed their UK gigs last month but hopefully they’ll be back on these shores in the near future. In the meantime we have their music, which I think is enough!