Every generation has signifiers of its youth, nostalgia triggers that work almost without fail. For my parents' generation, it's hard to think of a better one than the Radio Flyer wagon. These simple red-and-white carts with oversized black rubber wheels are as emblematic of suburban childhood in the 40s and 50s as ICBMs were to the Cold War, and almost anyone who grew up in the postwar era remembers their ubiquity fondly-- they actually outsold Ford station wagons for a number of years.
The Radio Flyer of my generation might be the Casio keyboard. I can remember getting one when I was a kid that had maybe three octaves and about 10 or 12 sounds along with classic preset rhythms they called "rhumba" and "bossa nova." My brother and I spent plenty of time parlaying that keyboard into extended sessions of annoyance for my parents, and I'll never get over how amazing we thought it was when we were young that you could get these little demos playing on it and then speed them up or slow them down at will. I remember a specific instance when the keyboard's batteries were dying, but still had enough juice in them to produce a sputtering, vaguely piano-ish sound when you hit the keys. Just a few months ago, I rediscovered a brief recording that I'd made of this phenomenon on a boombox, and it sounds oddly poignant, this wandering quasi-melody of wavering and decaying notes.
Whatever spoke to me about the sound of that failing machine years ago apparently also captivated Parts & Labor's Dan Friel as he worked on Sunburned, his second solo EP and his first to see proper release on a label. He opens the disc with a track called "Dead Batteries", a song literally built on a foundation of an old Casio struggling to play a rhythm preset with the power provided by nearly expended C batteries. The effect is a twitching, crackling foundation for his laser-toned guitar to slice through that perfectly sets the tone for this intriguing, challenging disc.
Friel has slowly been making a name for himself in Brooklyn not only with Parts & Labor, who last year split a full-length with rising avant-garde star Tyondai Braxton (now a member of Battles alongside ex-Don Caballero guitarist Ian Williams), but also with his bit parts in ensembles helmed by Damo Suzuki and Glenn Branca. In his spare time, he records with an intentionally limited setup, working to coax the best music he can from an array of electronics like remote-controlled car joysticks and walkie talkies. The squealing, dense textures he builds from those sounds form the bulk of this record, and he interacts with them with his electric guitar, pouring on layer after layer of his distinctly hued drones and distorted overtone series until the wall of sounds is complete.
The music he ends up with sounds like little else out there, a heaving mass of static beats, monolithic distortion, and bending, diving tones. Most of the modulating squeals that cut through songs like "Tractorcalls" are created by amplifying the signals of the remote controls, which produce a surprisingly wide array of pitches as the trigger is manipulated. Some of the clusters this technique creates are harsh and dissonant, while others are strikingly melodic. Friel creates a manic beat and descending harmony with his keyboard on "b2bs", making what could be best described as drill 'n' bass with a Motown chord progression. The beat on closer "Quitting", created by looping various pitches of static from his guitar pedals, is far less traditional, but functions well as a backdrop for his nasty guitar improvisation, which sounds like a doo-wop group made of fluorescent lights.
The queasy, noisy beat of the song nicely brings the EP full circle to its beginnings, emphasizing the disc's overall sense of cohesion and singular purpose. I hesitate to throw out the word "experimental" in most cases, but here I think it's warranted, as Friel's music is quite explicitly designed to test the sonic possibilities of a set group of objects and explore as much of that ground as is reasonably possible on an EP. In that, he succeeds beautifully, crafting a unique and uncompromising sound that ultimately transcends its limitations.
