DD/MM/YYYY – Black Square Album Review
Coming in at 12 tracks over 35 minutes and 22 seconds, Black Square is the latest release by Toronto’s five-piece DD/MM/YYYY (pronounced Day, Month, Year, if you must know). The downloadable version is available on iTunes as of February 17, 2009 and the physical release hits stores on March 17, 2009.
As I was not already familiar with the group, my only prompt was that they are a “post-punk/experimental/weird” group. That’s about as good as any description as I could come up with, so let’s stick with it. I suppose that they’re sort of like Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention “Lite”, with subtle Devo and Captain Beefheart influences.
Rhythmic, repetitive drum patterns, ethereal guitar patterns creating atmospheric pads and reverberant, droning vocals, analog synth lines and an overall fuzz-a-delic vibe are consistent throughout. The album opens with “Bronzage”, “No Life” and then “They”; each song decreasing in tempo but all sounding like a Zappa jam.
The fourth track, “Infinity Skull Cube” is where things start to pick up and start revealing shades of Devo (but only briefly). A decent track with an interesting drumstick pattern. I won’t post the track here, but you may want to head over to the band’s MySpace page and have a listen and/or check out the animated video.
“My Glasses” sounds like a minute of the sound of a wet finger run around the rim of a glass. If my detective work serves me correctly, this is because band member Mike Claxton recorded and mixed just such thing at his home. Oddly enough, this was one of my favourite tracks.
My Glasses by DD/MM/YYYY
“Birdtown” is an instrumental with hints of Zappa and Laurie Anderson, moving along to Zappa-esque little number “Sirius”. “Lismer” is a noisy drum and synth instrumental, followed by “Real Eyes”, which is not much of a departure from previous tracks. “$50,000 Guitar Gear” isn’t that special, but it is another “standout” track.
$50 000 Guitar Gear by DD/MM/YYYY
Finally, the album ends with “I’m Still in the Walls” and “Digital Haircut”, again with repetitious guitar riffs, muffled vocals and drums, etc. Altogether, I’d have to say that this album really didn’t do much for me, nor would I feel inclined to see them live. However, if you should feel inclined to see them, they do tend to get around. Visit the band’s MySpace page for dates and venues.
Tags: album, DD/MM/YYYY, experimental, post punk
this review does not do the band justice. i saw them live in chicago and they were very energetic. every member seemed to have a lot of things to accomplish in each song. at least 3 different band members played drums throughout the set, with others joining on extra percussion. and they made it all sound good. i then bought the Black Square album and enjoy it. i love the odd times and unconventional song structures.