Resurfacing after a two year hiatus, electro-circuitry band Death By Platypi is about to release its new album, Luminescent Properties. Based in Durham, NC, band creator Drew VanGoghmez gathered a group of talented cohorts to help produce the new tunes for the album.
Death By Platypi – Luminescent Properties
A more upbeat, almost pop leaning song (if you can even say that about this band) than the other tunes on the album, “No Van Gogh” is a giddy love song sung in pixelated harmony with a bouncy rock beat underneath it. The vocals have a teenage-like, hard vowel delivery that creates a nasally sound, accompanied by the same melody in an electronic fuzzy synth timbre. Short but sweet, this song is a much-needed shift toward positive energy in this album. The lyrics have a youthful, naïve essence to them, with innocent notions of sharing one’s feelings for someone in a love letter. The title of the song is basically saying, “I’m No Vincent Van Gogh,” but I really like you and want to share this piece of myself with you.
“Phobionic” features a thumping bass drum and clave to start easy — the distant shock waves from an electric guitar phasing in and out until the sheeny wash of vocals trickles into the mix. VanGoghmez’s vocals are very heavily dowsed with electronic flutters and computerized effects. Whispers of synthetic butterflies shutter in the background while other electronic textures pump and pulse in a slow spiral around the center. Just as captivatingly and mysteriously as this song appears in time and space, it then dissolves back into a silent oblivion before you realize what’s happened.
“Roll” caps off the album with a warbled and heavily distorted guitar melody that quickly shifts upward into a shuck-y kind of groove. Psychedelic, spiritual, and heavy yet gazing upward, VanGoghmez once again uses scratched vinyl audio clips to get their message across, which is that technology is used to deceive and control us in our daily lives. The bass creeps along underneath the thrashing of the guitar, keeping pace with the drums while the guitar line develops into a quickly tapped “widdle-y widdle-y” arpeggio. This song is one long arch, beginning with an exposition, curving upward and forward into overdrive, and eventually descending back into a faded crest of sound waves.
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