Language is for suckers, but due to the limitations of the human mind's other cognitive communicative skills, we're stuck with it for the foreseeable future. We valiantly try to communicate and create shared understanding, to define and relate, to create certainty in the world around us, all through the use of language, but in the end, if my idea of chair isn't exactly the same as your idea of a chair (which it's not), then what's the point? Sometimes it seems like language causes as many problems as it solves, and maybe we'd all be better off shutting up and looking for a better method. In that case, it's like my mom always said: "If you don't have anything nice to say, release a staggering debut CD of wordless, transportive beauty." I never put much stock in it, but Out Hud certainly paid attention, and here comes S.T.R.E.E.T. D.A.D., their answer to the brain's imperfect linguistic domineering. Out Hud can express more in one elegant passage than a week's worth of Derrida, and all without saying a word.
Okay, fine-- Out Hud versus the human brain? Clearly, that's going a bit far, but S.T.R.E.E.T. D.A.D. is similarly difficult to dissect. Although its darkly evocative compositions are filled with unspoken imagery and emotion, and each track feels like so much more than the sum of its instruments, Out Hud can't be so easily reduced to a simple genre classifier. What sets them apart is the populist edge of these heady tracks; their overtly cerebral complexity is perfectly suffused with dynamic, vibrant rhythm. Frequently, music that traffics in composition as complex as Out Hud's is so dense or rigid as to be entirely indecipherable, suited more toward turtlenecked discussion and heavy-duty beard-stroking than any sort of visceral enjoyment. Instead of simply confounding its listeners, however, Out Hud enfolds them deep within its vast sonic spaces, thanks largely to a potent assortment of industrial-strength dub beats and neo-disco laid down alternately by Tyler Pope's drum programming and actual drummer Phyllis Forbes. Out Hud's sprawling works short-circuit traditional neural pathways, wire the brain directly to the feet, and actively stimulate both.
Even the most inert among you should be compelled to move when confronted with such an irresistible force. Fluid tempo changes create a true sense of drama within a few short minutes; tracks rise and fall, build and collapse. Call it a fusion of the practical and the fanciful; intellectual depth combined with instant accessibility. The effect is dizzying, but totally inviting, and before you realize it, the virulent drum patterns and percussive effects have taken their toll. The once-elusive arrangements that might have remained forever out of reach now surround you.
But these guys are just getting warmed up; a tangle of tonic moods and atmospheres carries you down familiar, but implacable, rain-slicked streets. You sit in on late-night dealings and seamy, emotional back-room confessions. Long, low drones create a palpable sense of tension behind it all, and distant echoes hint at danger just out of sight, but an optimistic guitar refrain indicates that there may be light at the end of tunnel after all. Whole albums often fail to deliver music this poetic, and Out Hud manages it all in a single track, the aptly named "The Story of the Whole Thing". Out Hud excel at creating atmospheres, allowing the listener to read into the music, and it's this subtle ambiguity of intention that makes S.T.R.E.E.T. D.A.D.'s mystique so intriguing. For forty minutes, this band weaves together a mystifying array of audio noir; there's an almost imperceptible threat to the music, but time and again, it proves too compelling to turn away from.
Out Hud also back up their flash with remarkable substance, setting their music apart from anything as one-dimensional as standard club offerings or moody trance cuts. In many ways, S.T.R.E.E.T. D.A.D. can stand toe to toe with some of the best of the IDM genre, which is no mean feat for music so heavily rooted in organic sounds. Of course, the drumming has a lot to do with that, but no more so than the band's other instrumentation. Nic Offer's bass seamlessly syncs with the beat to form a slow, soulful underpinning on these songs, and Tyler Pope wrings every manner of noise out of his six strings. In particular, the guitar theatrics are jaw-dropping; it echoes across the channels in time with the rhythm while simultaneously shattering the calm with a jangling blast of noise on "Dad, There's a Little Phrase Called 'Too Much Information'", as just one example of Pope's invention. Offer runs his keyboard through every possible role, from driving the melody to vicious crescendos of noise, and along with Molly Schnick's versatile cello as a percussive and melodic force, it's hard to imagine fully exploring the near-unfathomable reaches of Out Hud's tunes.
After a handful of vinyl-only releases, Out Hud's first CD made me briefly reconsider the merits of the vinyl medium, if only as a means of obtaining their other works. Fortunately, there's enough material here to keep me busy with Out Hud for a long time. Of course, attempting to describe the effect with words is a little silly, but the album's strong enough that I had to try. You're better off just listening.
