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Album Review
by SashaS
27-8-2004
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| Whirlwind Heat: 10 tracks, 10 minutes! |
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Whirlwind Heat: 'Flamingo Honey'
(XL Recordings)
Whirlwind Heat: mini-cut experiments in sound
Got 10 minutes you’d like to invest into something enriching? No, not in the material sense, we don't condone ambition, it is only a substitute for talent but that's another bottle of Highland Sping - mine's a sparkler! Anyway, 10 minutes... There can hardly be anything better than 10-track single/EP ‘Flamingo Honey’ by Whirlwind Heat. Yep, each track is precisely one minute long and all are – aural ornaments.
It is hard to believe that such variety can be achieved within such duration but – have you noticed that wise man don’t talk much? These ideas were distilled to their bare-knuckled essentials and, although an impression may be that these are like sketches/demos of some kind is erroneous, they all are fully realised songs.
There is a vigour and élan blowing through these tracks and it could well be spontaneity as this collection was recorded in – one afternoon. Five hours, to be pedantic, to write and record at the co-producer Brendan Benson’s Grand studio in Detroit. It surely isn’t sonically uniformed, nor homogenous in any way but offers a huge variety of settings and moods. From the punk’n’sludge of ‘Meat Packers’ and ‘Muffler’ to ‘H is O’ [‘The Heat is On’ by Glenn Frey, remember?] that goes funky until ascending to a rock-explosive ending.
‘The Bone’ launches and ‘Lazy Morning’ closes this parade of mini-symphonies for disassociated youth with a bang and a wallop of a first shag. Yeah, that sweet and memorable; there are even element of Krautrock as well as some avant-garde sonics on ‘Ice-Nine’, ‘No Gums’ is phat in the bass-department, with ‘Pearl Earrings’ being just a rhythmic lunacy in-your-face.
Splendidly succinct but the idea is not new: some 24 years ago The Residents explored it on the 'Commercial Album' that contained 40 one-minute songs!? [It is re-released soon by Mute but there is no comparison as The Residents’ disc is a much stranger offering.]
Jack White produced Whirlwind Heat’s debut album ‘Do Rabbits Wonder’ of last year. This miniscule magnum opus was canned on 17 December 2003.
9/10
SashaS
27-8-2004
Whirlwind Heat’s 10-tracker ‘Flamingo Honey’ is released 23 August 2004 by XL Recordings
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