Fixity – Fixity (Kantcope)

A compelling series of largely instrumental soundscapes from Cork native Dan Walsh.

Side A (it’s a cassette tape) features mostly shorts, Side B two longer form pieces.

They all drift and tease through a thick fog of cymbal hiss and ambient haze.

The bass is the thing I keep coming back to. The warped rock n roll pattern of ‘Blue paint’. The stalking garage rock feel of ‘Hungry clouds’, although that gives way to a kind of blissed out haunted dream pop. The constant pulse of ‘stigmatostigmata’ amid freaked out filtered guitar. The wonderful frantic motorik effect of ‘The things in the room’.

It’s dark more than bright but somehow an optimistic dark. Abstract for sure but still groovy as fuck. Improvisation - knocking on your door then dangling it just out of reach. It just is.

There is great art in our midst.