Four incantatory tracks built up from melancholic spoken words, Katie Wilkinson aka Birds’ new “Erosion” on Free Ride Millenium features eerie acid loops to deliver you into a kind of Techno underworld.
A sound, like music machines that had long lain dormant, launches an almost sardonic voice with the British accent of London-based artist Katie Wilkinson. Her effect is lost-sounding or existentially bored, like a safety recording that has repeated itself on an automated loop aboard an abandoned ship for decades, slowly gaining some accidental self-awareness of the futility of its mission. A searching drum pattern finally joins. Followed closely by a sharp little acid line that sounds taut—any electrical aberration pulled free—which accelerates up towards hysteria and then back down toward looped futility.
The laconic, almost incantatory delivery pairs well with the searching eastern sounds of the top melody; the imploring, corkscrewing acid thematically tying every track together in a razor sharp bow. She sings like a ghost; an eerie devils tritone winding itself serpentine around her near-moans.
The opening measures of “Dance Of The Cobra” sound like they may belong to a sultry rock number until the acid rears up like a sidewinder. The closer, which comes closest to standard beat-laden Techno, features a background resplendent with the eerie synthetic squeals of harpies ferrying the dead over the river Styx that crescendo like an oncoming storm. Allison Goldfrapp once described her musical project as befitting of a “fortnightly disco seance, which may also apply to the spooky glamour of this “Erosion” release.
-Winston Mann
Check out Dirty Epic music recommendations here.
Listen to our podcasts here.
Find out more about our events here.
