Isan - Lucky Cat
(Morr)
Think of Isan, already veterans at a young age, as electronica's kin to the
Quiet is the New Loud crowd. Just as folk's freshest-faced minstrels revere
the undistorted strum and chime of acoustic guitars, Isan forsake digital
devices to glory in the warm, coursing hum of analog electronics, retreating
from the paranoiac, hypermodern havoc of the sound-file clickers and cutters
into an innocent world of mistily nostalgic musings. Where the Quiet ones
plaster their altars with photos of Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, and Drake,
Isan's Anthony Ryan and Robin Saville kindle their candles for Vangelis,
Ryuichi Sakamoto, Brian Eno, Cluster, and later machine romantics like
Ultravox and OMD. On Lucky Cat, the duo's ingrained English facility with
the simple gifts of countryside melody binds these dozen exercises in
patient synth pulse and purr, Eno-esque ergonomics, and entwined
Moebius/Roedelius geometry into things of unabashed beauty. Get past the
cutesy title and artwork, both of which misrepresent the mature craft in
evidence here, and Lucky Cat is sure to enchant. Lovely opener "Cutlery
Favours" dresses a blushing display worthy of a rural dawn in the coarser
textures of vintage synth sounds. "Recently in the Sahara" drapes expressive
synth swells with well-tempered arpeggios, while "Caddis" and "You Can Use
Bamboo as a Ruler" incorporate compelling chitter-and-chirr beat
constructions. Only "Scraph" and "Read Again" slip slightly, the former's
FX-heavy, hip-hop drum track competing with tweaked synth lines to overtly
Boards of Canada-like effect, the latter aping "On"-era Aphex Twin rather
shamelessly. Otherwise, Isan keeps Lucky Cat's beats plain and
non-intrusive, demonstrating a light touch that supports the music's rare
delicateness. If present at all, the rhythmic ticks serve as tiny, tasteful
accents, bejeweling the pastoral perfection of "What This Button Did" and
"Table of Deciduous Species," or rolling like pearls of dew off the lush
melodic branchings of "Fueled."
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