Motor Eye - Motor Eye (2006)
In the pre-Spotify era, Australian independent netlabel Hidden Shoal had a sizable worldwide catalogue, out of which some stuff was inevitably hit and miss, and otherwise proved to be quite a treasure trove, starting with the one Belgian band through which I've learned about the label (Colour Kane, with one of the best dream pop albums even people on here haven't find out about somehow) and continuing on with artists and bands that unsurprisingly appealed to me thanks to their cited influences (Stereolab-influenced NY band Monocle is a decent example), as well as unexpected surprises...
One-time duo Motor Eye (AKA Holding Pattern) were fitting into both of the latter categories, as they name drop Massive Attack and DJ Shadow in their only press release, so I expected to like this album, yet they also mention Steely Dan - and I had mixed feelings about Aja. Furthermore, the single and lead track on here, "Midstream Horses", in the guitar and lyricism sounds like something distantly derived from some sort of Americana, like country or blues - maybe one could call the music a bit alt-country? In any case, I wasn't entirely sold off at first but I persevered and listened to the whole thing - and then again, and then again, and then again. Cause, you see, this is a fine slice of hypnotic and somewhat minimal, almost genre-less music (I hesitate to call it even jazz fusion, although I guess it's technically the most fitting classification for their band format).
In time, I've grown very fond of the entire album, from its fried jazz moments (literally "Mosquito BBQ") to the orientalist inflection (what secondary genre tag can one find for that?) on "In the Garden of the Embassy", and including the arguably amateurish vocals, which to me work in a post-punk kind of way, I guess... If I were to be asked to identify what makes this stuff so engrossing and addictive for me, it's clearly how percussion here is quite at the forefront, very important to forming a sonic world, which is what I believe they carried over from DJ Shadow (and not his "noir sampledelia" per se, as they claim). It also helps the compositions are fairly eclectic, distinct enough despite the small number of instruments and techniques being combined, and indeed cinematic. They might not actually work in pop terms, but most often you get time to be pulled in by the rhythm, there's space to breathe and take it all in, and the almost barebones runs of percussion - akin to fields of acrylic color on a bare canvas - are tasty like salt to me.
Since 2008, this now ultra-obscure, hard-to-google album (which was only followed by a solo album - with a different sound - from one of the two members) has only increased in value to me and most of the tracks found a place deep in my musical memory (for a while, I had one element of "In the Garden of the Embassy" stuck in my head and couldn't figure out where did I hear this song), yet even though it landed on Bandcamp in, apparently, 2014, it has remained ultra-obscure - due to my negligence, as in not writing about it almost at all and not recommending it anywhere in particular (even I hesitated to call it trip-hop). Well, not anymore - if you read this, I believe you need to hear it.