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.
