Album Review: Grasscut - Unearth

Grasscut
Unearth
Rating: Grrrr

Can an album be too "something?" The UK duo Grasscut's sophomore album Unearth has been accused of being too British. The theme of the album is landscape and memory, each of the tracks tied to a specific location in Britain. And while the album has a very British feel to it, it is not overwhelmingly so; transcending what could have been a very clinical endeavor and elevating it to something far more universal. Drawing inspiration from poetry, history, recollections, sights, sounds, and smells, Unearth is a fascinating exploration of how our perceptions of places can be transformed by external and internal experiences.

Inspired by the Philip Larkin poem of the same name, lead track "Cut Grass" announces the aesthetic of the album from the beginning. Muted vocal harmonies floating over dense, glitchy electronics, while the lyrics ponder a visit to Spurn Head near Hull. This leads into the gorgeous strings and electronics of "Pieces" which comes the closest to merging Philip Glass-ian minimalism to glitch dance beats.



There is a feeling of haunted melancholy that runs throughout the record. "Reservoir" takes a pastoral approach, merging soft acoustics with buzzy atmospherics to perfectly encapsulate the ode to a village in Wales sunk beneath a lake.



"A Mysterious Appearance" chronicles Agatha Christie's escaping fame to a hotel in Harrowgate. Using pounding beats with samples from 40s music, it creates a sense of flight and desperation.



The intriguing “We Fold Ourselves” is like a time travel duet between Grasscut’s Andrew Philips and 1950s contralto Kathleen Ferrier, inspired by Tennyson's haunt in Surrey, Silent Pool. The 4.6 million shells of Margate’s backstreet Shell Grotto is the impetus for the meditation of strings and pianos of "Lights."



Moving from delicate, fluttering string samples to more dance floor oriented beats, "Blink In The Night (East Coker Version)" draws from connections between a bookstore in New York and a chance find of a funeral service order for T.S. Eliot, back to East Coker, his family seat.



From the breezy travelogue "From Towns and Fields," to the stately "Stone Lions," and the final, stripped down "Richardson Road" featuring the unique vocals of Robert Wyatt, Unearth is a brilliant journey through Grasscut's vision of England and what it means to them.



While the album is fairly UK-centric, it doesn't hurt the experience by not knowing the backstory behind the record. You can still marvel at the delicate interplay between modern electronics and more traditional song structures and instrumentation, the haunting use of samples, and the pastoral/glitchy beats. With the knowledge of what the album means and is meant to impart, Unearth becomes something much more, a journey to find what one's land and country means to you, and how that shapes and colors who you are.

Rating Scale:

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top releases of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and piques one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been polished, trimmed, or re-thought.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.