Every morning I wait at an undistinguished suburban stop for one of the Chicagoland area's Metra trains. The view across the tracks is a power transformer station and the back of a garden supply store. Occasionally, a rabbit munches the scrub brush. The best thing about the station is the bells. As a train approaches from either direction, two bells on stumpy posts in between the tracks begin to toll in a steady rhythm. But that's not the good part. The thing I love is that it's not always the same rhythm, and as they ring, they drift out of synch and make a kind of phase music that Steve Reich would love. Over the course of about 30 seconds the bells go from chiming in unison to ringing directly against each other. By the time they're back in synch, a third bell has joined, this one on the bottom of the train, creating a polyrhythm. This is where I experience accidental music every day, but you can hear it almost anywhere.
Music critics tend to make a big deal about complex rhythmic interplay, but I think it's a more naturalistic tendency than we usually give it credit for. Think about your breathing, your heart rate, and the speed at which you walk and chances are you've discovered a completely unconscious polyrhythm that your body creates out of basic necessity. That said, I am, of course, going to make a big deal about the skill with which Pattern Is Movement execute their multi-layered, polyrhythmic songs. This is one of those cases where a band couldn't have chosen a more self-evocative name if they tried, and PIF draws most of their momentum from the careful integration of many repeating figures, building complex latticework on which they hang swooping melodies in a manner not dissimilar to Emperor Tomato Ketchup-era Stereolab, 80s King Crimson, or The Sea & Cake.
The album kicks off with Andrew Thiboldeaux's thick falsetto hovering over a burbling river of woven guitar and bass, and it begins with so suddenly that it sounds like you've landed in the middle of a song. Thiboldeaux drops into his normal range for the verses and the band gradually adjusts, ultimately spinning the song into a suite-like structure complete with a dramatic bass melody from Wade Hampton and a spine-tingling interlude. With all of its interlocking parts and strange meters, this could easily be labeled math-rock. But Pattern Is Movement aren't content with complexity for its own sake, veering into direct, emotional passages and never failing to use their polyrhythmic prowess in the service of melody. Thiboldeaux's liberal application of Mellotron and Rhodes piano contributes greatly to this dynamic, and he often backs his theatrical, swerving vocal melodies with simple keyboard countermelodies.
Pattern Is Movement also have tangible narrative and political aims. Their most aggressive moment, the stuttering, staccato heartstopper "Julius", offers lines clearly based on the current political climate: The truth is all mine/ They are so confused/ It's them that can't see," and backs it up with a shimmering coda that emphasizes the missing beats in its odd meter, climbing a melodic latter with a bright flute Mellotron. The juxtaposition of languid melody and hyperkinetic rhythmic patterns is extremely poignant on "Pika Doun", as the band drapes aching strings and swaying vocals over Corey Duncan and Daniel McClain's telepathically joined guitars and drummer Christopher Ward-- who also recorded the album-- sits out the first part of the track, allowing short swells in tape hiss and intermittent clicks to do his work.
As the Mellotron lament "Postlude" draws to a weary close, it conveys the sense of a completed journey. The (im)possibility of Longing finishes as an incredibly well-rounded, internally consistent record-- one that covers an awful lot of ground in just 26 minutes. Pattern Is Movement more than transcend the math-rock tag, and their senses of songcraft and pop accessibility greatly outpace those of just about any of their peers.
