LNZNDRF offers freeform, experimental post rock

Title: LNZNDRF
Label: 4AD

OK, imagine your standing in a space, toting a guitar, ok? Got that? You are with a few friends and they have drums, bass… You know the sort of thing. Then someone shouts a word,
“Blueberry!”
“Eh?”
“Blueberry! Let’s go! Play”
“What? Blueberry? What are you on about?”
“Blueberry! Yea, start! Let’s do it! Play!”
“Err, right…”
And off they go. Playing music at random.

That is, a random idea is dropped in a creative pool and the group…just…plays…to the ripples that emerge from it. This is fractured post rock, melodic free rock, improv-style rock that bounces from one idea to another like a beat-driven pinball machine. The first track, the instrumental Future You is full of that. Even the second track, Beneath The Black Sea, which has a vocal track with a verse/chorus structure is not quite as structured as you might think because the band lean towards Jaki Leizabeit drumming technique in their vocal delivery as soon as they can find it.

Now I must admit that I like this stuff but then I enjoy krautrock so I would, I suppose. There is a lot of driving on this LP but I’m not sure if it’s a pursuit, an escape or just living in the moment. Maybe all three.
That’s not to say that this clear vinyl edition album is a high-tempo speed fest. Far from it. There are colour tones within each track but the energy is maintained at a high level, almost as if they’re afraid to slow down in case they lose ‘the moment’. This is an album – and a nicely mastered example it is too, incidentally – that gets better as it flows.

And that’s what happens when members of the band, National meets a member of the band, Beirut. It’s nice. Very nice. More please.

From the pen of Paul Rigby