Autistic Daughters - "Uneasy Flowers"

Autistic Daughters - Hotel Exeter Dining Room (Kranky 2008)

Autistic Daughters - Uneasy Flowers / Kranky

The dark brick road (Or is that concrete?) that walks off into the darkness of this album cover is a literal suggestion for you to follow Kranky into the blind if you have not heard New Zealand's Autistic Daughters before. There is a great deal of anxiety, a great deal of uncertainty, no reassurance in the opening seconds that suggest the cover is misleading in any fashion. These artists have come together to create something very muted, very dark and, as the pattern of the bricks may suggest, not of the ordinary shape and arrangement. Artists always have a way of eschewing these preconceptions.

And truly, the members recording here are artists with a substantial background in the avant-garde. A brief summary: Vocalist and guitarist Dean Roberts was in Thela and White Winged Moth; guitarist Werner Dafeldecker was in Polwechsel and The Year Of; double bassist Martin Brandlmayr was in Kapital Band 1, Radian and Trapist. Uneasy Flowers in particular also features Dafeldecker and Brandlmayer's cohort Martin Siewert; a dude from The Necks, Chris Abrahams; and Palermo, Italy native Valerio Tricoli.

Needless to say, it's a cast of accomplished musicians at work for Autistic Daughters' second album. The sonic straddle between barren minimalism and improvised folk for all seven songs on this LP, continuing exploration and processing into the realms of the 'Daughters' first release in 2004, Jealousy and Diamonds. Though Roberts never loses control by emoting all over the microphone, the vocal snippets (largely a near-whisper though they may be) instead stir you to pay closer attention through the story that works as a loose thematic structure. Based around a character named Rehana (who maybe has a child), the story takes lucid turns as only a record made for night listening (or made in the night recording) would.

Also, "You're a bunch of cunts / The lot of you / And everything is / moving slowly / for a king / who is slightly drunk" between lonely handclaps on "Rehana's Theme" will be sure to get your attention. If you weren't paying attention before the first of 36 minutes on the album, that should do the trick.

The most engaging aspect of the music may be the way the guitars are used, whether they be looped or manipulated or droned or even strummed to provide the very melody these songs are based on (Imagine that). Some of the most intrusive guitars are the distorted six-strings used to great effect on "Gin Over Soured Milk." As one of the highlights of the album, this song minimizes the negative sonic space that the other tracks are so good at doing (much like Susanna on Sonata Mix Dwarf Cosmos) and, though the instrumentation is spare, the chorus is heartbreakingly memorable.

There are no easy flowers on this record, but "Hotel Exeter Dining Room" is as optimistic a conclusion as one could hope for. The tapped cymbals ring in pianos and a chorus that whispers alone but collectively urges a better future, a brighter hope for Rehana. Even when the words don't match the music, the feeling evoked from this song is one of relief from the oppressive loneliness one feels after the first six songs. The pace is faster. The piano is twinkling. The light is on, but it no longer matters what the gaping black hole on that cover holds. Full speed ahead, into the darkness, the future, the unknown. You can never know too much. Autistic Daughters know as well as anyone. They'll go forth anyway, onward, upward, ahead. The light may dim, may flicker, may even burn out. But this is life, for Rehana, for you, for me. There are no easy flowers in life. Autistic Daughters know, and they're trying to make it easier. For Rehana, for you, for me.