Disappears have been on my radar as a name but I’ve never got round to investigating further, so it was quite nice to get an opportunity to review this. The very long A side “Kone” opens with some GS!YBE style atmospheric strumming which slowly fuses with some Sonic Youth style guitar fx and a Can-esque stop/start drum beat and all of sudden you’re ten minutes in. That’s when the rather non-committal vocals appear and you realise that this is the entirety of the track. It’s not a bad record but it’s very slight and I can’t imagine being excited enough about it to shell out for it on vinyl. It’s even more surprising that such a slight record should come from such pedigree. I found out that Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) used to be the drummer and the vocalist was once in 90 Day Men (who were excellent. The highlight of the song is pretty much the “Cosmic Drop” noise (as found on my Casio keyboard) which drops in (ha ha) briefly at 12 minutes. Not bad but there are thousands of better songs and albums knocking around for free on the very same internet that you are browsing and they’re available for free. The second side is much more robust, with a muscular tom drum refrain and a short but urgent bassline being pinned together with clattering guitar noises. It comes on like Flaming Lips meets Pink Floyd and is much more agreeable for being under 5 minutes long. I do find the addition of a ten minute edit of “Kone” totally baffling so I’m going to ignore it. Not bad but as an introduction to the band it’s a bit underwhelming.
Kim Monaghan
