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Parallax Error Beheads You is Ben Jacobs third LP under his Max Tundra alias. It's been six long years since he last dropped a record, 2002's Mastered by The Guy at the Exchange. It's unclear what took him so long, but it was well worth the wait.
Jacobs deals in a warped (pun intended) take on electro pop. A whirling car crash of influences that cut and paste acoustic sounds with the more outré end of the dance music spectrum. Whether this is dance music that is 'intelligent' or not, Parallex Error Beheads You somehow manages to move both the soul and the feet.
At first listen the number of ideas crammed into each track is almost overwhelming. The frantic magpie approach to rhythm and melody seems random, a computer music take on John Cage's chance music. Random bursts of music thrown into the sampler and spewed forth to form the 10 tracks on Parallax Error Beheads You.
On deeper listening the order begins to develop from the turmoil. Ideas and melodies converge into something quite beautiful. Think Prince in his prime remixed by Aphex Twin or Oval on fast forward bumping into Pulp at an all night rave. Which Song has a rubbery analogue bass line, high falsetto vocals and a magnificently sequenced set of chords. Jacob's vocals sound like Green from Scritti Politti his voice as gentle as English spring mist. It's pop perfection.
The Wurlitzer jump cuts of Orphaned are pop music turned inside out. The vocals are a smear, a smudge drowning in a thousand tiny cuts and time stretching effects until they finally unfold in the songs final section. Nord Lead Three contains more twists in its two minutes forty one seconds than Oasis have managed in an entire career. It starts like some badly recorded heavy metal demo before a drum break jumps it to an organ vamp, then a 60's garage band overdosing on speed enter the room, they don't stay long before departing, the metal band reappear before we get some kettle drums and loud overdriven climax . It's the Walk This Way video directed by David Lunch on crack. It's wonderful.
This record is a real paradox. On first listen it sounds all surface and no substance. The disorder and glitch ridden nature of the music is the perfect reflection on these hyper accelerated times in which we are living. Yet the reality is that it is a witty, clever collection full of nuance and depth. The irony is that it just requires time and patience to revel itself. That type of time seems to be in increasingly short supply.
The timing of Parallax Error Beheads You is perfect. Tundra's return shows the likes of Keane that synth pop is more than a few '80s synth settings and hollow gestures. There is future in those dials and plugins and this sounds like it. It is a near masterpiece, elastic, eccentric and eclectic. It's a glorious jumble of sounds and sources, a masterful mash up, a post modern confection with a wholly humble heart.
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