Track Listing > >
I Fucked Up Air Miami / I Fucked Up Reagan / I Fucked Up Gene Pool Style / I Fucked Up Tight / I Fucked Up Captain Cave / I Fucked Up Slugger / I Fucked Up Umbrella People / I Fucked Up The Sun Is Round / I Fucked Up French / I Fucked Up My Electric Underwear / I Fucked Up Nylon Heat
BRILLE RECORDS
Straddling a fine line between moments of genuine inspiration and lazy underachievement, Whirlwind Heat are a frustrating band at times; a band that can fall into two categories, there's the energised electrified squeals and squelches of a band you can love and then there's the dull lo-fi worthiness of a band who have one too many Sonic Youth records in their collections.
Releasing their second album of the year, I FUCKED UP TYPES OF WOOD sees the band reworking all thirteen tracks of their TYPES OF WOOD record from earlier in the year as lo-fi acoustic songs; kazoos and casio keyboards included. This is a ramshackle and rough around the edges affair, Whirlwind Heat mumbling and stumbling their way through the songs with all the attitude of Beck jamming with Will Oldham in some dingy basement straight to cheap four track tape recorder.
Stripped of all their noisy guitar freakouts and juddering rhythmic spasms, Whirlwind Heat are revealed as tender lo-fi troubadours; all pretty keyboard work, subdued guitar chords and hushed vocal swooning. The likes of I FUCKED UP AIR MIAMI and I FUCKED UP REAGAN are rendered as pretty acoustic tunes, whilst the more skewed I FUCKED UP MY ELECTRIC UNDERWEAR is given a more avant garde treatment; with eerie whistles, chants and rustic scrapes and shuffles.
The blues howl of I FUCKED UP NYLON HEAT is the records noisiest moment, Whirlwind Heat coming on like a malfunctioning White Stripes, an insistent electric guitar riff anchoring the obscure piano splurges and mumbled vocal interjections.
Not exactly likely to blow your mind or amaze you, I FUCKED UP TYPES OF WOOD is the sound of Whirlwind Heat getting playful and inventive with their songs instead. Less an essential release as a curious oddity for hardcore fans of the band, this is an intriguing if wilfully obscure and strange sounding record.
BIOGRAPHY
Fresh from releasing their third album TYPES OF WOOD and having ripped it up supporting Test Icicles on their final tour, the 3 headband wearing, baseball bat swingin boys from Michigan are set to release the AIR MIAMI EP. Having released two previous albums that saw the band creatively one step ahead of the game TYPES OF WOOD captures the band at yet another point of their unbridled creativity. It's sound is variegated and distinct. All this with just Bass, Drums, and Moog.
Whirlwind Heat are three kids from Michigan who happened to catch the eye of Jack White four years ago. The band were preposterously ahead of their game when they released the frenetic thrash punk-funk album DO RABBITS WONDER in 2003, not to mention the 10 songs in 10 minutes mini-epic FLAMINGO HONEY a year later. REAGAN EP is four tracks of irrepressibly jerky, joyful indie industrial funk the REAGAN EP sounds like Lou Reed fronting the Pop Group, effortlessly fusing the sound of New Cross 2006 with New York 1981.
LINE UP
DISCOGRAPHY
TYPES OF WOOD (Brille>2006)
Air Miami
Reagan
Gene Pool Style
Up-Tight
Captain Cave
Slugger
Umbrella People
The Sun Is Round
French
My Electric Underwear
Nylon Heat
REAGAN EP (Brille>2006)
Reagan
Memory
Macho Man
I Fucked Up Reagan
AIR MIAMI (Brille>2006)
Air Miami
Same Maiden Name
Backhand
I Fucked Up Air Miami
I FUCKED UP TYPES OF WOOD (Brille>2006)
I Fucked Up Air Miami
I Fucked Up Reagan
I Fucked Up Gene Pool Style
I Fucked Up Tight
I Fucked Up Captain Cave
I Fucked Up Slugger
I Fucked Up Umbrella People
I Fucked Up The Sun Is Round
I Fucked Up French
I Fucked Up My Electric Underwear
I Fucked Up Nylon Heat
LINKS
Whirlwind Heat>www.whirlwindheat.com
FURTHER LISTENING
Urusei Yatsura
Sonic Youth
Pavement
Review date: January 2007 |
