Safety Scissors
Parts Water
[Plug Research; 2001]
Rating: 8.5
Safety Scissors is one of several monikers chosen by Minneapolis-born, San
Francisco resident Matthew Patterson Curry. And in this case, the alias is
wholly appropriate. Parts Water is essentially a glitch-dub album
with occasional vocals. But just as the round-edged scissors that are given
to kindergartners to cut out construction paper shapes are, for the most part,
blunt, Curry has blunted and de-hazarded glitch music as we know it.
Like his peers, Kit Clayton and Sutekh's Seth Horvitz, Curry believes that
glitch could stand to be incorporated into genres other than dub (I'm looking
at you, Stefan Betke). The most visible manifestation of this interpolation
of glitch is, of course, Björk's Vespertine. But even though, like
Vespertine, Parts Water sports Curry's untarnished, self-sung
vocal tracks, the album is also easily likened to Herbert's masterful
Bodily Functions. No, Parts Water doesn't go all out for the
dancefloor like Bodily Functions generally does, but it hints that,
with some minor remixing, he could find himself the creator of several
dancefloor staples.
Parts Water opens with "Two Letter U's," in which Curry applies his
sonic malfunctions to a slow go-go swing, and contrasts a loping swagger with
a stuttering Hammond organ figure. "A Wash" opens with guitar twangs tugged
at by glitches, until a horn imposes rhythmic order and ushers in the gospel
organ that flourishes towards the end of the track.
Curry turns to glitch balladry for "Stormy Weather," using vocal treatments
similar to the ones Herbert messed with on Bodily Functions.
Harpsichordian sounds tinkle in and out of the mix as Curry inserts the
same terse hi-hat sounds that characterized Neil Landstrumm's Bedrooms and
Cities. Disconcerting harmonic wobbles are then allowed to breach the
meniscus of the melody as Curry sings a heartfelt admonition: "So don't make
up your mind/ Your vision may be cloudy/ So now is not the time/ We're in for
stormy weather/ I feel it in my knees."
With the bass drum barely even a presence, "7 Glasses a Day/7 Days a Week"
relies on Landstrumm's taut percussion set to propel the track. Under the
trebly rhythms, an intoxicated Basic Channel-style organ pokes around, only
to be accosted by a marauding band of dub echoes. "Your Beautiful Feet" begins
with calm tones and a stuttering bass guitar. Then, after Curry reveals
himself in disconsolate vocals ("I'm a puddle/ Down on the street/ Watch where
you're standing/ I'm six feet deep"), wobbly chords bubble up from beneath to
replace the gentle keyboard's song.
Though glitch-bossa makes its debut on "Esperanto," Curry returns to the fuzzy
dub of Pole for the drifting clunks of "Before (Less)." On "(Water)phone,"
he sings surrealism about waiting for someone to pick up the phone he's
dialing. After a scratchy miniature, lo-lo-lo-fi New Order-ish guitar joins
the fray and Curry concludes that the person he wants to talk to is in the
shower, and that the running water is drowning him. Curious.
But the aquatic theme that permeates Parts Water is never more
prominent than during "Sailor Stripes"-- a viscous melody figure swims
through shards of sub-surface sunlight, like some winding eel searching for
a plankton which is represented by fragments of human humming. "Dipsy Daisy"
stays submerged in Curry's ocean, but for once, he allows his kickdrums to
pound, taunting them that they can break the surface and make it to dry land
without a remixer's assistance, but only when he permits it.
After the upbeat, cowbell-driven "Slipper," Parts Water closes with
"Mirror (Wet)." The track not only reprises most of Curry's lyrical concerns
("I drank all the water I can drink/ I can't drink anymore/ My eyes are
floating in my head") but also the deft incorporation of glitch-dub into
unexpected song forms. What impresses me above all about "Mirror (Wet)" is
that Curry has written chord progressions and intriguing melodies that I've
come to associate with his labelmate, Low Res. "Mirror (Wet)" could have
been one of the terran tunes the extra-terrestrials captured on Res'
Approximate Love Boat, the Plug Research release that first alerted
me to the possibilities of applied glitch. However, Parts Water stands
apart. Surely, we must afford Curry the same laurels we've bestowed upon
Matthew Herbert and Björk.
-Paul Cooper