The long delay in a UK release for Peaking Lights' 936 - which has been available in the US since the spring but is only now appearing over here through Domino Records imprint Weird World - may present an unfortunate barrier for its reception. It is a record that seems preprogrammed to be your irresistible summer hit, an utterly addictive meld of hazy synth and dub grooves, with echoed vocals chanting out repetitive phrases like invocations and meandering guitar melodies spinning off from the locked-tight rhythmic core. The aural equivalent of blistering heat and massive overconsumption, it seems to have already had its function fixed and determined, a record suited for less dismal days than a British November has to offer. It also points up one of the often tacitly accepted shifts in what it means to be a fan of alternative or experimental music, however one wants to characterise it: the mechanics of distribution are becoming increasingly irrelevant. Importing the LP from Not Not Fun themselves, or procuring it from a UK distro, is far less difficult than it might once have been, and certainly not an unusual route for a fan to take; certainly, the lack of a UK release until now does not seem to have hampered the acclaim it has been receiving.
However, this belated UK release does mark an opportunity for me to reaffirm just how great a record I still think 936 is, even viewed out of the high-summer context in which I first heard it, first became hooked and played it to exclusion of all else for a little while. The duo of Aaron Coyes and Indra Dunis are working within a style that is broadly familiar, bearing some degree of family resemblance with other Not Not Fun Records bands. In particular, the dub influences are reminiscent of the later records of label-owner Amanda Brown's Pocahaunted, after a rhythm section had brought a sharper focus to their hypnotic tribal psychedelia. The sound, as with much of NNF's output, is determinedly lo-fi, but it thankfully manages to avoid seeming precious; it is perhaps a few years too late to reference hauntology, but nevertheless it is certain that Peaking Lights are not making their affective appeals to any sense of nostalgia or absence.
If there is a loss their music evokes, it is for a material and productive involvement with the technology that is often allowed to fade into the background of the music-making process, the disavowed but fundamental issue of what tools one chooses to use and how one relates to them. This is not a question of the past, or of a digital/analogue divide, but of a constructive investigation into the possibilities of technical objects too easily discarded once their (obvious or intended) functionality is superseded. Much of the music Peaking Lights make is played on instruments Coyes has built from outdated second-hand electronics, repurposed to no specific intent except to explore their latent sonic potential. This sense of machines working against themselves, producing sounds they had not been designed for, permeates the record as a kind of imminent disintegration, the static and reverb not deliberate techniques but side-effects of the resistant instruments goaded into making that strange warbling drone just one more time.
The songs themselves are spun-out jams, cutting into and out of the fixed melodic core of an often infectiously-catchy bassline, looped over and over as the layers of audio detritus pile up, catching hold of other melodies or providing a fragmentary harmonic background of whoops and oscillations. 'All the Sun That Shines' is impossible to shake off for any of its seven minutes of sinuous bass and chanted vocals, while 'Birds of Paradise (Dub Version)' hangs on a series of simple lullaby melodies, a soporific narco-haze of reverberation gathering everything together. 'Tiger Eyes (Laid Back)' is built around a clattering marching-drum beat, as the record takes a more propulsive turn, beginning to drive forward and drag your body with it. 'Marshmellow Yellow' is dense and intricate, snatches of percussion clicking in and out across the whole spectrum, the bass struggling to provide a clear groove through the spacey fuzz which blurs it into a low-end smear. Closer 'Summertime' is the logical end-point, maximal disorientation, beats building up to break down, coherence undermined as various machines slip out of phase, lose traction on the track. The duo are wringing one last moment of pleasure out of electronics pushed beyond their limits of endurance, and in that open space doing things that could not have been expected of them - producing messy and joyful songs that are perfectly, unabashedly pop without any pejorative connotation.
This is music that is experimental in the true sense, that strict sense John Cage appealed to as designating any activity of which the outcome is unknown. And personally, there's nothing that makes me happier than a danceable experiment.