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Posterity is a funny thing, rendering hit parade-leaders into embarrassing relics whilst various failures and oddballs might eventually find themselves hugely influential. Look at the Velvet Underground – they’d barely make ends meet during their tumultuous existence, but their imprint is just about everywhere in good quality modern rock ‘n’ roll. In the 70’s, meanwhile, easy listening yacht rock ala The Eagles was the prevailing soundtrack, but it’s the then commercially negligible, anxiously twitching post-punk and proto-electro that reverberate today.
London-based Detachments join the ranks of acts that mine old, once-obscure sounds now that coming up with genuinely fresh styles is seemingly impossible. Led by Sebastian Marshal, their debut is a time-warped trip into someone else’s nostalgia, unleashing a skilled replica of early electronica sounds, Marshal clearly being no stranger to the classic output of Suicide and especially Kraftwerk. You know the deal – synths swoosh icily, remote yet melancholy melodies glide by unhurriedly like drifting clouds of dry ice, old school drum machines skitter like fishing rods banging on upturned metal buckets, vocals – a monotonous weak point, it has to be said – refuse to venture anywhere near a human emotion.
Such a limited range of references is a bit of a problem. Whereas, say, LCD Soundsystem – similarly driven by hipsters’ enthusiasm for parading their record collection – have often hit the jackpot by mixing and matching ingredients that were never meant to be coexist harmoniously, Detachments are forever coasting along on the Trans-Europa Express, with a side order of urban angst situated somewhere around Bowery, NY circa 1976, the results frequently sounding like mere rehashes of other peoples’ innovations. The studied cool can also become an issue. At its worst, the relentlessly bleak and, er, detached tone of ‘Detachments’ brings to mind the German comedy nihilist electro band in the ‘Big Lebowski’ – forever skulking in the shadows, full of threat in its own mind, but actually coming across more like clumsy, unconvincing posing.
When Detachments can be bothered to shake off their perma-frosted inertia, though, it’s easy to forgive all kinds of shortcomings. ‘You Never Knew Me’ cooks up an impressively oppressive murk of subterranean clatter, hiss and buzz. The Andrew Weatherall-assisted ‘H.A.L.’ shakes off the all-pervasive air of gloom to get physical, working up an intoxicating sweat, whilst ‘Fear No Fear’ tips into jerky post-punk funk. More such sparks of life next time around, please.
