Portland’s Adderall Canyonly (Wayne Longer) sent us two new albums to review, but when we saw that he’d released four in the last four months, we decided to check them all out. That’s a lot of releases, but to his credit, the artist has graced each with a distinctive sound. There’s the haunted house album (Excelsius Minor), the peaceful psychedelic album (From Below We Reach Above), the experimental noise album (Influenza 10) and the sine wave collaboration album (In Deck and Depth, A Whim, A Weft, which was recorded with Min Roach (4X27) as The Dept. of Harmonic Integrity). Longer’s synthesizer is the common link in all of these releases, but the vast difference in timbres means that every release may appeal to a different audience; the descriptions below will help to direct the attention.
Influenza 10 (Beest Recs) is the oldest and oddest offering of the batch, a collection recorded during a deep illness. The album sounds like the jolted juxtapositions of a fevered brain. “Ace the Squares” starts and stops, then races into a segment that sounds something like a group of cheerleaders riding unicycles at the circus. Gleefully ignoring all common rules of composition, the piece still manages to develop something like a hook; then it slows down like an unplugged appliance. The same odd cadences decorate the other seven tracks, which in retrospect provide a link to Excelsius Minor in that they seem almost sinister in nature. It’s not easy listening, but it’s not hard listening either; there’s always a point of access, whether it be the head nodding beat and video game bloops of “Floating Master” or the heartbeat monitor of “Snake Arms”. The darkest and most appealing track is “The Accumulation of Poisons”, which pushes the abrasion into the red.
Influenza 10 is frightening due to its random nature; Excelsius Minor (Rubber City Noise) frightens by design. An homage to Goblin, Carpenter and related synth acts, it unfolds like a haunted storyline. The album begins with the sound of what could be synthesized waves, implying a sinister force surrounding the lighthouse pictured on the cover. But soon the melodic snatches appear, many in minor keys. Guitar and Rhodes imitate the scores to classic horror films in which the music was often more jolting than the images. The rubbery bass and theremin-esque tones add to the nervous nature of the release. The title track takes a severe left turn at the three minute mark, veering off the road and heading straight into the bushes as if to avoid the obvious musical path. But just as it finds its footing, the glissandos arrive, ratcheting up the tension. These dramatic depths are again reached on “We Camped On the Mouth of Maddness”, whose title indicates that the site choice is far from wise.
And yet, the music of Adderall Canyonly is not always nervous or fearful. From Below We Reach Above (Field Hymns) is nearly bucolic. The title track is reminiscent of a Hawai’ian vacation, with gentle swoops and swirls; “Radial Special Eclipse” is a relaxing ambient piece for the first 5:34, at which point a series of processed chimes enters to thicken the pot. “Thanks for All the Canvases But We’d Prefer the Forests Returned” shimmers, shakes and disintegrates; the morosely-titled “If We All Live Long Enough We Will Lose Everyone” begins with an imitation foghorn and closes with a shrill alarm, as if to say, “Adderall Canyonly is not a placid act!”
In Deck and Depth, A Whim, A Weft is a more benign than Excelsius Minor, in that the synth is used for melody instead of fear. The dronelike ending of “Pulse”, however, implies that the artist is unable to stay sunny for long. By “Limbs +”, a dirge has already begun to creep in; and when “The Ouudan” transfers its energy from a looped ice cream truck tone to a whirling helicopter rustle, the listener becomes aware that deeper forces have come to play. But after the oppressive, 14-minute “Harmonic Corollary”, the light again breaks through, as if the synthesizer could not bear another bout with darkness; “Various Achievements of Tomorrow” is the most cheerful piece of the quartet.
Synth fans now have four new albums to check out. Adderall Canyonly is on a roll, and shows no signs of slowing down. Fans of his music should definitely bookmark his Bandcamp page, as we suspect he won’t remain quiet for long. (Richard Allen)
a closer listen 