From Aural Innovations #37 (Sep 2007)
There’s a lot going on throughout this double CD from Philadelphia’s
Audiophyle. While they refer to themselves on their myspace site simply as a
space rock band, that’s only part of the equation. According to their
bio, they got together back in 1998 and started playing “tight, dubbed-out
space jams”. But their latest album, Cog, finds the band exploring numerous
sonic directions, combining and mixing them in new and exciting ways. Cog consists
of two discs, the first a collection of more song oriented material, the second
a disc of totally instrumental explorations.
On the first disc, we get a collection of songs steeped in an early 80’s
post punk aesthetic, but filtered through the fuzzy grunge and alt-rock sonics
of the 90’s, with a liberal seasoning of the band’s space rock roots
to give it that out there edge. I was reminded of a spacier, heavier take on
artists like Public Image Ltd. and Siouxsie and the Banshees, the latter especially
in guitarist Tia Refait’s wailing, intense vocals. The band does mostly
original material, but throws in a few covers for good measure. Included in
the covers is a particularly grungy take on Soundgarden’s 4th of July,
with Refait finding a deep, oceanic, Black Sabbath-like guitar tone for the
main riff. They also do an absolutely blistering space rock version of The Cure’s
A Forest, with some deliciously heavy guitar riffing from Refait and keyboardist
Doug McMahon providing spacey synths (other core members of the band include
Colin McDonnell on bass and synths and Steven Partyka on drums). This one blows
the Cure’s version out of the water, in my opinion! Originals like Darker
Then Him and Spin Circle Spin, with their shadowy synths and freaky guitar effects,
take the band in more of a space rock direction, whereas songs like Smoke and
Load, Growl and Fluid follow punkier and more stoner rock-like muses. Near the
end of the disc we get a taste of what’s coming up on disc 2 with the
excellent Swimming, definitely one of my favourite cuts, a great instrumental
featuring moody, fuzzed out guitar delays dripping with liquid, bubbling synths
over a steady, hypnotic rhythm.
The band plunges wholeheartedly into this freakier side of their sound for disc
two, which is comprised of entirely instrumental jams and electronic expeditions.
Tracks like Don’t Get Caught, with its jittery synths and bassy echo and
Parotswalking, which bases its grooving jam around a funky 80’s style
synth sequence, are par for the course here. With its watery rhythms and understated
melodies, Gray Again is pure electronica, but Planet on the other had dives
straight into a sort of buzzing glitchcore with dub undertones. Lime 2 takes
the dub into overdrive with a spaced out, jazzy meditation drenched in reverb
and delay. For the most part, it seems Refait trades her guitar in for a synthesizer
on this disc (except for perhaps using the former instrument as an effects device),
giving it a much more electronic feel than the first disc. But the guitar is
definitely back in her hands for the nearly 20-minute long epic, Fvredd Biards,
a bluesy excursion into 60’s style psychedelic jamming a la Quicksilver
and other such bands. The disc ends on the abstract electronic sound collage
of Warm Winter Sun, certainly the most experimental piece on the album.
The two plus hours of music on Cog present a wide array of styles drawing on
post punk, grunge, electronica and dub that when all pulled together create
a dark, sonic wonderland for listeners who like their music intense, but with
lots of diversity.
For more info, visit: http://www.audiophyle.net
and http://www.myspace.com/audiophyle
Reviewed by Jeff Fitzgerald