Whilst this debut album from YYY might be genre-hopping, musical gene-splicing, sonic scatter gun of sounds and ideas, the more you play it the more you are drawn not so much to the obvious and slightly mad eclecticism and increasingly to its more subtle and supple elements. Less to the building blocks and more to the cement…as it were.
There is an obvious connective eastern vibe of bass drones and temple sounds, tabla drums and chant like vocals, but as seen through a heavy, hippy, psychedelic prism. And behind the music itself is an exploration of isolation and self-reflection, agoraphobia and perhaps even a gradually edging towards madness.
But amongst the more claustrophobic sounds of songs such a I.philia and Belayted are tracks which seem more content to conform, such as the trippy Keep Off The Lawn, the groovy and positively chipper UU and the late Beatle-esque touches of Cool World.
Aquadungeonafterdark is a strange place, but strange is good right? Strange isn’t boring, strange isn’t conformist, strange isn’t predictable, strange is exploratory, strange is original, strange is new.
Yes, as I said, Aquadungeonafterdark is a strange place, but I can think of plenty of worse places to be right now.
