Desire Choir [LP]

Andy Human and Sam Lefebvre began writing and recording Desire Choir in 2021. They biked to a West Oakland rehearsal space and tracked drums and bass to an old tape machine. It was an accretive process, initially disoriented from live performance. Influenced by a "communist interpretation of collective music" and the variable post-punk and dub combinations of the On-U Sound label, as they write in a pamphlet companion to the album, Non Plus Temps emerged as more singers and players sought affinity amid the pandemic-era social isolation and unrest.The result joins various instruments (sax and saz, synths and bells) and production techniques in a sound like the "broken headlight sky" mentioned in "Endless Jetty Night," the nervy, Residents-like meditation on coastal subduction zones closing the A-side. Album opener "Continuous Hinge," with vocalist Amber Sermeno, is a backbeat beaded with Stanley Martinez's electric viola, while "Facts Sound Like Myths" introduces pinballing dub paranoia. "Reversible Mesh," they write, suggests a "self-conscious Eno affinity surrendering to Chrome."