It is strange and fascinating that sound alone can evoke such nuanced yet universal emotions. With other senses, it is not so direct – who feels sad at the color green or anxious at a certain smell? But sound can do just that. And Ben Recht and Isaac Sparks know all about it. As The Fun Years, the two multi-instrumentalists have been exploring a sonic territory between drone, ambient, post-rock and turntablism since the early 2000s. The now re-released 2008 album »baby, it’s cold inside« is one of their highlights – and rightly so.
The opener »my lowville« builds over ten minutes from a quiet guitar motif, vinyl crackling and atmospheric noise to a dense sound collage. The reference to Low is in the title, but Mogwai also comes through. »auto show of the dead« begins with a sparse piano loop accompanied by a guitar – until both are buried under drones and distortion. Dusty samples and washed-out, microtonal textures create not only an astonishing harmonic density, but also – see the introduction – intense emotions: dark, dreamy, floating. This is what makes »baby, it’s cold inside« so strange and fascinating.
