The restless part-time duo of James Mercer (The Shins) and Brian Burton (Danger Mouse, Gnarls Barkley) are on the creative trail to left field on their new EP Meyrin Fields.
The two musicians, together known as Broken Bells, have stepped up their psychedelic intake and are tweaking, tripping and testing zonked-out and shimmering sounds to mould a symbiosis of digital flexibility and analog opportunities.
Mercer and Mouse have mastered the art and form of label-less sounds. Mercer’s clear and cutting vocals are matched by Mouse’s jet-age keyboard work and the robotic bluster of his drumming.
The guitar work of Mercer reveals new forms of textural eccentricity; fuzzed-out waves of tin morph into spaghetti-western hooks.
They use whatever fits, and the tracks, all four of them, burn icily through edgy ideas.
As the album is brief, so is the review. The music on Meyrin Fields is unpredictable and riveting, and is best experienced by putting the disc on repeat to let it loop over and over again.
Broken Bells are reaching for something out of the future, so dream.
–– Dean Gordon-Smith is a local musician and music columnist for The Morning Star.
