I Hope I Can Feel Something Like That One Day

"Excuse" is an ugly word; it has connotations of lie, like a reason that is a lie, at least partially. But "I've been busy" isn't a lie, per se, it's just such a bad reason that it feels excuse-esque. So there's my reason (however poor) for not keeping up with this, though I'm sure it must feel like an excuse to one Devin Hildebrand who emailed me a few weeks back about his sound-collage project Dth. Excuse me.

A lot of this new EP seems to stem from forlorn distress, from the slightly heartbreaking title I Hope I Can Feel Something Like That One Day to the individual songs ("I Always Feel Like Crying (For Mom) is a knee-jerk " :'( "), but musically it isn't quite so hyper-depressive, nor is it as explicitly annoying/boring as sound collage can be. After the clusterfuck and appropriately titled opener "[!]" the album unscrambles and is surprisingly delicate and deeply personal, culling samples not just from random found-sounds but "From our VHS labelled "X-mas '95 / Jodi". It's all set to understated ambient instrumentation, some synth drones and acoustic guitar mostly, it seems, but nothing to overpower the star(s) of the show here (though that being said, cut-up sample set to a live drum beat at the end of the title track is a definite highlight). The whole album is beautifully balanced, between collage and composition, between the vaguely hopeful and the utter despair, between cacophony and ambiance but, somehow, it always ends up an entirely compelling and a quietly disturbing experience.

The highlight here is probably the closer, "Humans are like Ripples", which is probably the simplest in terms of structure and use of samples, but is strangely hypnotic as a whole crowd of people is asked "how was your day?". It sort of epitomizes the forces at work on the album, as the answers range from humorous to somewhat worrisome (sometimes simultaneously) and the music fluctuates accordingly, apparently with some science behind it:
Notes on a set scale (0-20, including halves of numbers) droned accordingly to numbers spoken in spontaneous dialogue prompted by "how are you feeling today, 1-10?"

Basically, I Hope I Can Feel Something Like That One Day is a wildly curious set of songs, which is meant entirely as a compliment. It's the sort of quiet headphone listening for one of those days. When you're not quite sure you want a pick-me-up or if you'd rather throw on Unknown Pleasures as a hold-me-down, then go ahead and try Dth. It'll kind of do both to you, and you'll like it, promise.



Click here to download/stream the whole thing.