We don’t know this extension of Marcus Maurice. We haven’t been down this road, haven’t lived through this lens yet. We know More Eaze — gosh, do we ever! — with their endless array of tricks flying out of their sleeve, their digital pointillism meshed with broad smears over an ever-widening canvas. More Eaze once released a tape on Orange Milk, and that should be all the information you need about that.
But their new work as fibril comes at us from a different direction. Maybe we should’ve seen it coming (I did mention “broad smears over an ever-widening canvas” up there), but to this extent? Marcus gives that playful dance inclination the old heave ho, opting instead for the thickest shoegaze soup this side of Neil Halstead’s famous chili. And Neil’s a Texas-style cat, just like Marcus — no beans!1
Seriously, though, I couldn’t get MBV out of my head while listening to Maurice’s debut as fibril, and lord, I don’t want to! Maybe they got their hands on Kevin Shields’s (or Billy Corgan’s) distortion pedal settings, because whatever they are, they make a drop-D tuning sound like an earthquake. Add some synthesizer garnish here and there and the top half of fibril plays like a lost Creation Records EP.
But Marcus hasn’t quite ditched the glitches, because “the bats are back” and “(( flutter ))” get all up in our BPMs like blast beats from depths of an old hollowed-out computer. These sprinkles of black metal flavoring give way to both spectral ambience and chorused darkwave fretwork. And what better way to end this exercise than with an extended shimmering Slowdive homage? There isn’t a better way.
I like this direction from Marcus Maurice. And leave it to Atlanta’s Already Dead Tapes to make this all work — talk about a perfect match.
1. [Citation needed]
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