Home Video : No Certain Night or Morning

<img src="http://www.qromag.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/homevideo.jpg" alt=" " />Like rain hitting the pavement of dark city streets and the pounding escapism of life taking shelter from the scene, Home Video's darktronica washes with...
6.9 Defend
2006 

 Like rain hitting the pavement of dark city streets and the pounding escapism of life taking shelter from the scene, Home Video’s darktronica washes with a flurry of inhuman activity.  The Brooklyn duo’s stark beats, backed by synthetic sheets, evoke a modern anti-culture image, like some gang of robots jamming in an alley.  
Vocals swirl with a monotony-on-a-mission on a digital, expressionist canvas in the vein of triptronic acts as Massive Attack and other shrouded atmospheres.  Their debut album, full of artificial, shadowy imagery is an array of sounds that still manage to fit into a specific alien mood – a promising, well-developed midnight afterthought.

No Certain Night or Morning is a splintered, beat-driven architecture of minimalism and micrometrics, featuring a constantly shifting sound that crosses over itself, often mid-beat, to form a sound that’s seemingly twice as dense as it really is.  "Superluminal" jumps around a trampoline with twenty legs like some furious insect flailing to catch its balance.  There are very few "human" touches to the album, even the vocal harmonies are limited simply to a few scales that imply some mechanical focus.

Guitars surface as sporadic notes and sprawling waves caught in a whirlwind of quick-hitting digital drums.  The opening track, "Sleep Sweet", is highlighted by prodding acoustic guitars, lifted electric solos, and rapid bass, making a song that’s as IDM as it is pop.  "Penguin" has some of the album’s most inspired vocals that echo thinly over jabbing guitars and laid-back beats with a restrained mania of an urban cabin fever.

Home Video paint a dark, but enthralling picture of a desolate metropolis, while seemingly breathing life into otherwise joyless machines.  No Certain Night or Morning can captivate nighttime’s busy mind – your body won’t dance but your brain will.  It’s quick and slow at the same time, and shines a light in a typically dark genre.  And as a first effort, it’s certainly a sign of even more impressive things to come. 

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