Review: Dead Luke – American Haircut
Dead Luke - American Haircut (2010) [Floridas Dying] // Grade: A-
On Dead Luke’s MySpace, there are profiled pictures of modded toy synths, a theremin and a sitar. Locating each of these instruments on the nom de music of avid Wisconsin home-recorder Luke Gasper’s third long-player, American Haircut, is not such an easy task though. Most of these nine songs require multiple deep breathes and dives to the base of their murky bottom to come up with anything entirely separate from the album’s entire mix.
The third release under the Dead Luke name, Gasper (a Zola Jesus and Dead Hookers contributor and founder of cassette label Jerkwave Tapes), has succeeded in making one of the most candid and raw approaches to walled-in swirling psychedelia I’ve heard all year. Attempting at merely lobbing it as a form of ‘psychgaze,’ it’s vital to note that these nine tracks do a few key things over the course of the 37 minutes you’ll spend lost in its haze. Released on imprint Floridas Dying—following a pair of singles on Sacred Bones—Haircut switches through churning garage pop in its washed guitar flutters of the noodled 60s variety (“Luke is Not Dead”); sun-soaked, delicate cheer (“Trapped In Lust”) and heavy gulps of alienation played out like some deadening tale of a gloomy backroom drug trip (“Sunrise”).
American Haircut is a full-palette chameleon record, though its powers of reverb-soaked sonic shape-shifting are much more obscure and leisurely done than simple white-to-black shuffles. On first listen, you’d like to think this music is made by one skronky bedroom fiddler caught deep in Midwest boredom; the kind of guy that wouldn’t give a shit about buzz bands of the Pitchfork variety. After further listens you do start to notice just how accessible this record attempts at becoming. It’s this type of line walking that makes American Haircut so precious in it’s playing power. Hard to swallow at first, there are buried bridges along the way to guide you— guitar lines, drum sputters or vocal leads— and after you locate them, track by track this record starts to shine.
For those singing the praises of King of The Beach, Haircut’s “Dreaming pt. 3” could very well be the best Wavves-record interlude you’ve never heard, whereas the luminous, wonderfully titled sing-a-long, “God Bless The Midwest, God Roast The East” sits comfortably for those contemporary fans of something like The Black Lips or The Growlers. The following, Panda Bear-fueled “Acid Forest” is American Haircut’s most experimental in result accompanied by a cheap machined synth throb, choral harmonies and cymbal washes, while the aptly-named closer, “The Best Drug I’ve Ever Done,” is a flawless sonic companion for an under-the-covers trip down the rabbit hole with spiced hints of Anton’s BJM trippiness or Darker My Love’s rustic revivalism.
American Haircut is swelling, raw and hazy psychedelia and it’s limited to 500 copies, so quit thinking about it and go buy one of my favorite releases of the year already.
