Structures and Behaviours EPv1 –  The Mayhem Lecture Series (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

If most people pursuing musical endeavours are the equivalent of commuters rushing about town looking to pick up the tools and equipment needed to fashion sound into what most people recognise as acceptable and fairly conformist forms, Dave Wesley is more like an astronaut, deep sea diver or caver, someone who finds inspiration and creative building blocks in the furthest of reaches. Mercurial could almost be a word invented to try to encapsulate how different his various musical projects are from the normal scheme of things and in a way it is often easier to define his music by what it isn’t rather than what it is.

It isn’t about the song, it isn’t structured, not in any way that is obvious from the outside, though I’m sure there is more maths and measurement going on under the skin than I could even hope to comprehend. It isn’t lyrical, though there are voices and it certainly isn’t designed with hook, melody or ease of access in mind. But what it is is intriguing and thought provoking in the same way that other artistic forms often are but contemporary music rarely is.

Structure and Behaviours music, if it even is music, talks to you in the same way the likes of Laurie Anderson’s or Philip Glass’ might, challenging and confrontational, strange and all the more exotic because of it. Its combination of conversational speech and eerie echo’s of industry or radio interference is reminiscent of the between song parts on Vangelis’ original Blade Runner Soundtrack or the incidental passages from The Wall. But whereas those were the short link between the more recognised tracks, these strange, almost eavesdropped collections are the whole raison d’être.

I don’t pretend to understand it, maybe that is the point, but I always want to hear what comes next, muse on its meaning, get confounded by its impenetrable shell and ponder the whole reason for its existence. When was the last time a three minute pop song gave you all of that?