A dark thread runs throughout the discography of Amanda Brown’s LA Vampires project. With each release, Brown returns again and again to churning, industrial beats and moody synths, hypnotically chewing a piece of gum that refuses to lose its taste. And her fascination with sinister sound is justified- some of the most fertile artistic material often hides in the shadows. But darkness eventually begins to wear on even the gloomiest among us. Spending all of one’s time plumbing the depths can eventually lead to blindness and insanity. That is, unless you enlist the help of a friend, a hand-holder who makes sure you don’t get lost.
Brown has had plenty of collaborators in the past –she hardly puts out any material without one- but her pairing with Maria Minerva is the most interesting duo she’s put together yet. On The Integration LP, Minerva applies her demonstrated penchant for bubble gum lyricism (think Madonna’s “Don’t You Know” and No Doubt’s “Underneath It All”) to Brown’s disorienting but catchy house beats. Punctuated by extraterrestrial horns and keys, her gliding, reverb-laden vocals thread their way through doleful synthesizer ecosystems. The record is a strange mixture of dance-appeal and intrigue, a vibey freight train that burrows its way into your subconscious.
On the album’s second track, “The End Of The World”, Maria ponders impending doom while Martian synths and rolling drums converse in the background. And at the beginning of “Seasons Change”, the sixth track, she laments with ominous echo, “the silence around me is driving me insane”. This kind of apocalyptic, existential reflection is scattered all over the disc. It establishes Integration, packed to the brim with fear and neurosis, firmly in line with the rest of the LA Vamps catalog. But where Nika Danilova chose to directly confront the abyss of Brown’s meditative darkness (tracks like “Vous” off of LA Vampires Meets Zola Jesus), and where Bethany Cosentino chose to run away (she found herself so deeply maimed by Brown’s enigmatic, shifty approach in Pocahaunted that she turned her next project, Best Coast, into an overcompensating California sunlight fetish), Minerva takes a different tact.
The Integration, under the Estonian artist’s auspices, exists in defiance to the very darkness that surrounds it. Minerva’s vocals –though dripping with reverb- are prominent in the mix. Her tone wobbles perfectly between weariness and insouciance- you never do get to find out how she feels about the end of the world. This kind of lack of resolution would be disheartening, but music like this reminds you that a lot of value can be found in the intangibles, that you can mock death even when you uncontrollably dance toward it.
On the album’s second track, “The End Of The World”, Maria ponders impending doom while Martian synths and rolling drums converse in the background. And at the beginning of “Seasons Change”, the sixth track, she laments with ominous echo, “the silence around me is driving me insane”. This kind of apocalyptic, existential reflection is scattered all over the disc. It establishes Integration, packed to the brim with fear and neurosis, firmly in line with the rest of the LA Vamps catalog. But where Nika Danilova chose to directly confront the abyss of Brown’s meditative darkness (tracks like “Vous” off of LA Vampires Meets Zola Jesus), and where Bethany Cosentino chose to run away (she found herself so deeply maimed by Brown’s enigmatic, shifty approach in Pocahaunted that she turned her next project, Best Coast, into an overcompensating California sunlight fetish), Minerva takes a different tact.
The Integration, under the Estonian artist’s auspices, exists in defiance to the very darkness that surrounds it. Minerva’s vocals –though dripping with reverb- are prominent in the mix. Her tone wobbles perfectly between weariness and insouciance- you never do get to find out how she feels about the end of the world. This kind of lack of resolution would be disheartening, but music like this reminds you that a lot of value can be found in the intangibles, that you can mock death even when you uncontrollably dance toward it.
