Purple Splazsh

July 13, 2010 queenemily

The almost-title track from dubstep-notdubstep kingpin Actress’s recent Splazsh album.  It’s hard to really even situate it anywhere generically.  The clangy guitar reminds me of 80s cop shows, as do the overblown snares (tweaked 909s perhaps?), while the intermittent vocal snippets seem drawn from an untraceable rnb song that could have been recorded any time in the last 20 or 30 years.  The overall effect reminds me of BBC series Ashes to Ashes, period nostalgia overwhelmed by what Freud called the unheimlich, the unhomely.  The link between the two is, after all, strong– “nostalgia” etymologically refers to the ache of remembering one’s home.  “Purple Splazsh,” like much of Actress’s album, hits that feeling without ever really giving a specific referent to its nostalgia–a tough trick indeed in a musical culture where obvious pastiche is very much the rule.

Entry Filed under: a history of the near future,Actress,from there to here,music video blogging

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