Staff Reviews

Avey Tare's Slasher Flicks - Enter the Slasher House

Review by Russell Warfield

Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks finds Dave Portner sounding more like himself than ever.»

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Slasher Flicks by name alone is not what it appears to be. Scrambled horror film soundtracks? Not even remotely. A bunch of East Coasters making their quintessential LA album? No, more like escape from LA, say guitar-wielding lead singer Avey Tare (of Animal Collective), keyboard player and singer Angel Deradoorian (of Dirty Projectors, Deradoorian), and drummer Jeremy Hyman (of Ponytail, Dan Deacon). If LA is an environment to get lost in, as they claim, this group sewing roots in SoCal have become lost in the best way: relocating and reinventing sounds they're already skilled in making, sounds that as Avey Tare says, are not only regionally unrestricted but that "come from a place that's not human."Having composed the bones of these eight songs on acoustic guitar, Avey Tare invited Deradoorian to create melodic lines to flesh them out. Then, enter Hyman, whose backgrounds in painting and music proved his rare combo of flexibility and acuity, "free but structured". Uniquely its own "jazz power trio," Slasher Flicks produced and recorded the songs live at the Lair studio using only minimal overdubs; the live sound being key to Slasher Flicks' spooky dynamism. While their sound is monstrous and there are nightmarish moments peppering the lyrics and melodies, Little Fang's clean guitars, soft everything and special smoke called 'PYT' blown into the tape machine shows off spirits conjured from sweeter worlds.
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