Swamp Sounds / Uncle Pops & The Dumbloods – Swamp Sounds / Uncle Pops & The Dumbloods (CD Album – Bearsuit Records)

Genre/Influences: Experimental, industrial, cinematographic.
Background/Info: This production released on the Scottish label Bearsuit Records is a split album featuring Swamp Sounds (Japan) and Uncle Pops & The Dumbloods (Scotland). Both artists deal with experimental music and have been featured each with five cuts.
Content: Swamp Sounds takes the first part and mainly reveals a pure experimental composition made of decomposed sounds, broken rhythms, but still melodic passages and even dances parts. Yuuya Kuno clearly likes to manipulate sounds and noises, which finally resulted in a truly sound collage.
The work of Uncle Pops & The Dumbloods remains pretty experimental-like, but we here move more into cinematographic parts. The tracks sound more compact and clearly appealing to be accompanied by a visual work.
+ + + : Bearsuit Records is one of those small, but interesting labels dealing with atypical artists. That’s an aspect I’ve always liked and especially encouraged when it comes to release ‘original’ music. This is an interesting work for experimental lovers who’re into sound decomposition and noise treatments. The work of Swamp Sounds is quite diversified, but always carried by 100% experimental treatments. The work of Uncle Pops & The Dumbloods is more accessible and I especially refer to some passages reminding me of the mysterious atmosphere of the “Twin Peaks”-series. “Autoroute” is a noticeable cut in the genre.
– – – : Experimental music always remains a particular experience, which is less accessible for a wider audience although loved by the true lovers. I can imagine it rather sounds as a sonic enigma for non-experimental lovers. Speaking for myself I’ve been more surprised by the difference in sound and influences between both artists.
Conclusion: If you’re a curious and you like to discover experimental talents, this is for sure an album that will catch your attention! The sound is perfectly represented on the front cover: fragmented and made of multiple little pieces, which don’t necessarily match with each other.
Best songs: “Moon Circles” + “Autoroute”, “The Comfort Singer”.
Rate: (6).
Bands: www.facebook.com/Swamp–Sounds-189486954870356 / www.facebook.com/unclepopso
Label: www.bearsuitrecords.webs.com / www.facebook.com/bearsuitrecords
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I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.
