Chasms sounds like The xx if The xx was a group of burly, muscular men and a girl instead of two skinny goths and a girl. Technically the group is just a duo, but the analogy works. Their music is dripping with thick bass and washes of reverb, the kind of mix that is just glorious to listen to. Full of substance, kind of like molasses. Visual work is handled by artist Diane Le Lay, who creates a visual memory through old archival footage “originally shot by Le Lay’s grandmother in the 1950s.”
The opening of “Darker Outside” stays percussion heavy, with a mechanical, industrial tinge. Entering the chorus, though, the melancholy vocals crack a sort of barrier between the sensation felt by watching a video and the sensation of listening to a song, both existing separately, until it becomes just one sensation. A barrage of decaying, emulsified footage that increases in its intensity until the mind begins to throw shapes — imagined — into what it is experiencing, and skulls, dancing pictures of death appear. The children in the original footage were full of wonder, joy, and life. Here they are fearful and alone.
• Chasms: http://chasmssf.bandcamp.com
• Diane Le Lay: http://vimeo.com/dlelay
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