Considering that
Mica Levi
's incarnations as a composer, producer, and bandmember sound wildly different from each other, it was difficult to predict where their first album under their own name would fall on their musical spectrum. Like
Levi
's previous output,
Ruff Dog
is another example of just how willing they are to subvert expectations. Self-released and unapologetically insular, the album's sludgy, guitar-driven mood pieces come closest to
's work with
Good Sad Happy Bad
, the band formerly known as
Micachu & the Shapes
. That group's fourth album,
Shades
, appeared just a couple of months prior to
, and its elliptical but undeniably catchy songs give the impression that much of the formlessness of their earlier albums made its way into
's solo material. At first,
's distortion and chaos feel like an equal and opposite reaction to the precision of
's work as a composer. Eventually, though, it becomes apparent that they use the album's lo-fi palette as artfully and specifically as the sound design and arrangements on any of their more seemingly poised music. There's a sense of overwhelm to pieces like "Wings," where
's sweet-and-sour voice (which was largely missing on
) is submerged in a fuzzy glow that's oddly pleasing in its indistinctness.
's blobby ambiguity calls to mind Rorschach tests or dreams, especially on "Cold Eyes" and "A plain clothed Jimi Hendrix drives me to Newcastle. For some reason the trip will take 3 days and he is going to do it for £150. He drives really smoothly and only listens to one album which is by someone with Joy in their name. Joy's music is covers of classic rock songs but with all the edge smoothed off. We arrive in Brazil and I impress someone because I say obrigado. The same person asks me to find them an intern. I don't think I can but I try. I am nervous in the girls changing room and play trap songs loud off my phone," a song with a title that resembles a dream journal entry and takes almost as long to read as it does to hear. Like
Du Blonde
, whose radical deconstruction of grunge comes to mind on "One Tear,"
excels at conveying subtle moods with the amps cranked up. Even when spiky keyboards add a little more structure to "Chains Baggy," the overall effect of
is surprisingly intimate, as if it's just
and the listener underneath its challenging and comforting blankets of noise. ~ Heather Phares