On: "A Tardy Admission That Crisis is Serious (Reworked by Fennesz)"

There are many ways to inject a little pep into your morning. Charlie Bronson, Britain’s most misbehaved prisoner, recommends calisthenic lunges followed by porridge in bed. Many people settle for a latté. A small percentage, myself included, require loud but carefully blurred noises, blasted discretely upon waking. To these people I highly recommend a visit to Type Records, where you can live out your boyhood fantasies of waking up between foghorns (or, in the case on the new LP from On, waking up to the feedback from a Red Hot Chili Peppers gig from the era when they were still drew some blood). It definitely knocks socks off the conventional digital alarm clock, and will satisfy anyone needing that “Ah, oblivion” factor in their mornings.

Pushing On’s track-title-versus-number-of-instruments to the max, “A Tardy Admission That Crisis is Serious (Reworked by Fennesz)” finds Sylvain and Steve making art out of nothing but a drum, two basses, and the El Niño climate pattern, blasting bad weather at their listeners. This particular storm of drone/bouncing cymbals comes sandwiched between two parties—one downstairs being pumped up through woofers, the other in the room being played on Baby’s drum kit. Basically, it’s parenthood, with Christian Fennesz’ gift to the shower party being his manipulated non-noise guitar. You can’t self-hypnotise to it, mostly because of the broken growl and lift ping samples, so I can only assume its original intention matches the small percentage’s idea of a siren, a carefully blurred siren, and one in a desert built from bones, goatskin, and tribesmen. I can’t think what something this ominous could signify, except possibly the end of everything, which—judging by the number of survivalist shows imported to his native Belgium—is something Sylvain Chauveau might welcome. Man Versus Nature, and nature’s on top. Bear Grylls is losing. So’s everyone.