[[[[VVRSSNN]]]] - s/t
(K)
I'm beginning to suspect Adam Forkner is one of those folks, like the members of fellow spirits Landing, who never stops recording. There's his collaboration with most of Landing themselves in Surface of Eceyon, there's his flagship band Yume Bitsu, now there's this solo album. So I had half prepared myself for epic drony dreams and figured that would be the cause. FOOLISH MORTAL! (Or so I like to imagine some weird lurking demon that he has around saying to people who come in with preset expectations, I'd rather like that to be the case.)
[[[[VVRSSNN]]]]—I think I'll just stick with the more readily expected pronunciation, thanks—is so titled in part because it consists of eleven tracks that are in fact alternate takes/remixes/rearrangements of Some Sort of Core Tune. If it's to be lumped into anything for convenient purchasing and CDR mix discs, it's that kind of friendly experimenting with IDM which various rock acts have made safe for others to explore without causing accusations of being sellout disco (which is a bit silly since sellout disco songs can be so darn great, but that's another issue). So there's Ye Olde Glitch Beats, there's distorted and tweaked vocals thanks to Kaos Pads, chopped and channeled bits of sound, and so forth.
But there's also drifting layered singing, sometimes of nothing at all beyond the dreamy choirboy sounds Forkner can conjure up, sweet guitar notes and chimes shimmering down and through and behind the beats. Forkner also makes sure to keep the beats themselves varied—the fifth version has a straightforward enough post-punk-groove going, a clattering distorted techno kick on the seventh, while the final version is full on bliss via skippy rhythms. It's not a new formula—MBV long ago demonstrated that gaze-plus-beats equals brilliance—but this particular tweak on it is right now all Forkner's own and makes [[[[VVRSSNN]]]] a constantly changing and constantly intriguing listen.
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