Call Super’s dance records include tracks with names like »All We Have Is Glue« or »All We Have Is Speed«, and carry their self-destructive rave ethos in their very names. When it comes to the length of the album, however, the excess in Joseph Richmond Seaton’s music dives below the surface. He’s been filling long-playing formats with his signature free-jazz trumpet, droll melodic runs reflected in occasional reprises and acoustic percussion since the band’s 2014 Suzi Ecto. However, it doesn’t sound any less psyched up than the club tracks. Rather the overdue psychosis has already set in, and the listener is allowed to participate in the mania, in the ultimate collapse of the musical ego.
On Eulo Cramps, this is accompanied by the cramps that give the album its title. The »Eulo« stands for »You Are Low«—opening the door to morbidity. The opening track, starring Seaton’s alter ego Ondo Fudd, immediately introduces the biggest sound innovation: an acoustic guitar, which expands the spectrum of Call Super and lends the music a gravity reminiscent of Japanese environmental music. But it doesn’t stay acoustic throughout, let alone ambient. The most likely hit on the album, »Illumina«, featuring vocals by Julia Holter, combines British bass music à la Minor Science with the pop appeal of Lusine’s »Two Dots«. Great, especially when you don’t need to listen to the number a second time, because the album, with its own special feeling, practically makes you listen to it all the way through.
Eulo Cramps
