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Late Of The Pier - Fantasy Black Channel |
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 OK, this is getting stupid. How in the name of Andrew VanWyngarden canwe be expected to take this album seriously? We accepted Klaxons’apocalyptic cut’n’paste old-school oddness. We bought Metronomy’sspasmodic electronica-with-a-heart. We’ve even gone with Holy Fuck’splayschool digital kraut shtick. But this? It starts with ‘Hot TentBlues’, a fanfare of ludicrously bombastic ’80s guitar posturing likethe finale to a forgotten Richard Gere romance, and finishes with theQueen-gone-industrial ‘Bathroom Gurgle’. In-between it’s a randomPollock mess, from tracks that sound like Crystal Castles doing VanHalen (‘Focker’) to glam-punk sidewinder ‘Whitesnake’,
which collapses into the sound of David Coverdale’s head after athree-day post-stadium gig bender – if David Coverdale was built by themakers of the ZX spectrum. Half the time it sounds broken (er,‘Broken’), like it needs a good old shake to get back on the rightfrequency.
It is a joke, right? Well, anyone who’s experienced LOTP in anycapacity or spotted that 8/10 will know it isn’t. Or if it is, it’smore brilliant than Richard Pryor doing Lenny Bruce on helium. It’sludicrousness par excellence. With the arrival of ‘Fantasy BlackChannel’ – four young men given free rein over four studios – it’s timeto hail the new age of anything-goes ridiculousness. It takes a certainkind of mind to make this. While others whinge about living and dyingin cul-de-sac towns shackled by cul-de-sac imaginations, LOTP’s visionis housed on Dubai’s ‘The World’ island-creation project. Lynchpin SamEastgate’s attic has a lot to account for. It’s where his father keptan assortment of synths, guitars and drum machines, and where theurchin cultivated a burning desire for experimentation; musical andapparently otherwise.
At first glance, drugs appear to be the cornerstone of their sound. Thealbum opens with that all-too-familiar lament: “Didn’t sleep lastnight, couldn’t come down”, and the likes of ‘The Bears Are Coming’could only be written after a brunch of mandrake root benedict. Anattention-bereft oddity that begins with bedpost African percussionseguing into low-frequency synth burping and electronic squeals thatsound like Pacman throwing up, it subsides into a mournful mid-sectionof Atari suicide that ushers in a free-for-all magical mysterydigression, further breakdown, then a bleep-blip finale. Did we mentionthe recurrent noise of spoons hitting mugs, an idea reminiscent oferstwhile King Crimson drummer Jamie Muir? He ran off to join amonastery. Let that be a warning, Donington boys.
Throughout, Late Of The Pier (and producer Erol Alkan) paraglide overmortal conventions, snatching ideas and abstract thoughts – thinkradiation suits, brown oceans, pineapple pieces in brine – from thinair. ‘The Enemy Are The Future’, along with the acoustic ‘hidden’track, is the only time they sink near our bog-standard concepts of anormal song and as such is the only boring moment. Late Of The Piersaid they wanted to make music that makes drugs redundant. With‘Fantasy Black Channel’ you can just say no and still feel likeWinehouse’s frontal lobe.
Tim Chester
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Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt
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Temp:
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30°C
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Wind Chill:
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31°C
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Humidity:
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45%
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FAST 42kb Stereo (WMA No-Popup)
LOW 16kb MONO (WMA No Popup) 
