Λ (Arc) – Wire Migraine (2011) [AMDISCS] // Grade: B+

You need to hear Λ. This alter-ego of Providence’s Xavier Valentine (a.k.a. MINARETTE) is making some seriously emotive, cinematic noise—the sort of thing you might hear from Trent Reznor if he re-wrote The Fragile post-Social Network score. The sounds alone are enough to hold you rapt: gentle plinks of piano and gilded Middle-Eastern percussion on the ambient end, bitcrushed vocals and swarms of rhythmic distortion on the abrasive. It’s textural, heady and beyond all else, graceful. Even the mid-album discord, this upsurge of staccato beats and semi-Italo bass, glides along like so many ballet dancers, spinning through Swan Lake.

Because really, subtlety of movement—within a sound, within a part, within the whole album—is what drives Wire Migraine. It is, like its artist namesake, an arc: each track introduces a new sonic element, building to a fever-pitched peak, then slackening to its gradual denouement. From the airy, piano-led ambience of “Gunnell” to the first pitch-shifted vocals of “The Whaler”; from the pulsing abrasion of “Nothing” to the climactic “Revenge City”/”Too Bad”/”Strict” trio; from hypnotic “Heliumport” to the smooth closing coda “Wire Migraine”; you could almost graph ‘em, all the peaks and valleys, and yet they happen so quietly. Subtle. Graceful. See above.

And it manages to hold its footing through all of it, a feat for such a movement-based concept. Though some tracks are clearly better than others—the screeching propulsion is great, but it pales in comparison to the fluidity (and technical mastery) of those instrumentals—Wire Migraine never hits a moment you feel compelled to skip. No filler, no gristle. Just solid melody and enigmatic grace, start to finish.

- Rue Sauvage