VHS Head - Midnight Section
Electronica
EP
5 September 2011
Skam Records
78%

Notes/Review:

 

Even though I've given short shrift to much of the VHS Head material I've reviewed in the past, there's something about the project that invites me in, eager to hear more.

Maybe it's the tacky artwork, the rusty, jagged, recorded-in-a-bedroom aesthetic, or the fact that listening to VHS Head makes you feel like you're invited to a private party; listening to something that few others have ever heard of, and are probably never likely to.

Neither does this Midnight Section EP deliver anything that you won't be familiar with had you happen to listen to VHS Head's debut album Trademark Ribbons of Gold. For those playing catch up, that album - released almost exactly a year ago - was a schizophrenic mash up of brutally edited movie samples, heavy handed bass riffs and fat, chunky synth pads.

The only discernible difference I can find on Midnight Section is a willingness to throw a few sampled soul-based vocal tracks into the mix. This throws out weird beams of melodic light from within the garbled shatter of VHS Head's jumbled found sounds, and works particularly well on tracks such as Decapitron.

Meanwhile, the glistening, stop-start melodies of the gloriously titled Nightmare Park reek of escapist menace. VHS Head may not always hit the mark musically, but at least conjures up strong visual imagery to complement its barricade of electronic mayhem; taking perhaps the seedy man-pays-for-killer-robot-sex storyline of Tubeway Army's Replicas onto the streets for a metal pipe fight.

Almost as if its maker has rather unwittingly stumbled upon something, Midnight Section perfects previous releases that were a bit novelty in nature, hones them, and in doing so delivers another giant gasp of breath. I'm on a journey now, and, weirdly, craving more.