Baking a cake is a simple thing. Two eggs, two hundred grams of flour, sugar and margarine, all mixed together and gently cooked for thirty minutes. An easy recipe. The results are fairly consistent, you know what you’ll get, but if you change those ingredients things become more interesting. Add grated carrot or courgette and you change the texture. Add raisins and you sweeten the flavour. Jagged City is a collaboration whose main contributors are Jake Woodruff of Defeater, Carlos Torres who worked with Explosions In The Sky and drummer/producer Urian Hackney. Together, they’re baking an instrumental, post-rock cake. With the help of numerous other artists and performers they’re keen to add strange ingredients and use unorthodox methods, making for a slightly unusual taste.
Jagged City is an ideal name for this project. Not just because its collaborators are based in different locations, but because there is a spiky, slightly unfriendly feel to their music, the kind of hostility you might find lurking in urban spaces. Indeed, the artwork features its title spray-painted on a door like a statement of intent, or a threat. Post-rock is often defined by textures, layers of shimmering guitars and meandering song structure, all these things are present, but the music collected on ‘There Are More Of Us, Always’ isn’t offering to open its arms in a welcoming embrace, it’s trying to push you away. This is a feature, not a bug, and is almost entirely due to one ingredient; the drum sound.
The delicate eddies and swirls of guitar that open most tracks contrast sharply with Hackney’s playing style. The splash and crash of his cymbals cascade over songs like ‘Hairspring’ and ‘Minus Power’ giving them an uncomfortable, itchy feel. Thankfully, as lead producer he knows how to combine these elements and the sound he captures is stunning and feels alive. It’s raw, wholesome and restlessly energetic, and not just during the lively parts either. However it’s also very much a taste thing, like chilli flakes in chocolate; an unexpected savoury kick in a sweet mixture.
Often ‘There Are More Of Us, Always’ feels like an entry from The Great British Bake-Off; impressive and artistic while not necessarily making a great accompaniment for your morning coffee. This is particularly true during the album’s mid-section where the songs shift and contort toward a post-metal sound. The quiet opening of ‘Hairspring’ becomes a gnarly mix of swaying, vicious guitar parts while the dances and swirls that define ‘Minus Power’ are tortured by drums that bang, and batter and splash. Neither feels comfortable but that’s the point. It’s all about contrast, about finding beauty in rough soundscapes and that sense of disquiet.
Although the more obvious guitar lines – the shimmering, ringing notes, Explosions In The Sky style – are where the album feels safest. It’s the type of safety you find in the ocean before a storm. The clearest example being ‘Rain And Sirens’ which ticks with the delicate persistence of a clock, building tension until there’s a cloudburst of drums and splashing cymbals, literally driving like a rainstorm only to continue hammering harder and harder before shattering into a huge crescendo. Creating an illusion and then breaking it is one of the group’s great strengths.
The real test of a chef comes when ingredients are limited and they are forced to innovate. Without a clear recipe to follow, it becomes all about confidence; Jagged City make their ingredients work, which is why the flavours are so strong. Notably the bass on ‘Imaginary Lines’ buzzes like a blown transistor, giving it a hard, uncomfortable edge that is something of a tolerance test. In contrast ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’ uses enticing guitar tones to sweeten the sound, leaving them to shimmer wickedly like the frosting on a doughnut. ‘Deluge In A Paper Cup’ has the confidence just to stop.
With seven tracks and short overall runtime the album is clearly concise but this doesn’t detract from its broad ambitions. Less of a single canvas it feels more like an exhibition of sketches exploring a single theme in different ways. This provides enough for a satisfying taste but, like a snack between meals, it’s a shame there isn’t a little more to sink your teeth into, especially as it offers a highlight as striking as ‘Ocean East, Ocean West’. Based on an unrelenting guitar riff with more delicate guitar parts woven around it the song becomes more and more hostile as its runtime plays out. All the ingredients are perfectly baked, carefully layered and dusted with icing sugar. It’s the best example of the project’s power, a taste sensation.
With strong flavours and compelling ingredients ‘There Are More Of Us, Always’ is not what you might describe as ‘comfort food’ but is just sweet enough to leave you craving a second helping.
IAN KENWORTHY