CD Review // Under_wear "Blueprints"

https://nickgrunerud.bandcamp.com/album/blueprints

The sound of Under_wear pushes what can conventionally be thought of as electronic rock music with soul to new heights.  Somewhat trippy, these sounds come through in loops for the most part, sometimes a new element being thrown into the loop as we go.  There are clicking like metal tongs in here and also just the beats take over and it begins to feel like these songs are made as dance tracks.

With the percussion- such as the shaker sounds on "Still That Way"- to the electronics, this has a lot of non-traditional sounds but they somehow come together to form this overall more traditional sound.  I have no idea what to even begin to try and compare this with because if anyone else is creating music like this I haven't heard it (but I'd like to).   It just feels so much like it's in its own genre now.

You have to imagine these fragments of other sounds, other genres, coming together to make one big sound the way that a collage would.  But the way this music would normally be presented with the percussion, bass, keys and guitar is not how these sounds are creating though.  It's the musical version in many ways of tiling your house with Rubix cubes.  On the surface it looks like what you'd expect but upon further inspection it is much more complex.

The lyrics of Under_wear are just as complex, yet they also somehow remain catchy.  The first song has the lines: "You're giving me / the air that I already have".   I really enjoy that.   "Still That Way" sings  "Let me know if it's still that way" and that can become somewhat caught in your head as well.   "Two Plastic Bags" has a list of different items and quantities, which just makes this feel so oddly specific yet it also becomes something you can sing along with.

"Mt Basil" is a mostly instrumental song full of big drums and chk chk's as vocals.  The whole thing can be described as "experimental" but that's such a broad term.  It's very soulful, very creative and at times it can even become hypnotic.   The way that the pieces of other sounds are broken apart and put back together to create this sound is not something anyone can ever expect to hear but this is certainly the future of sound.