Breathe Out – Breathe Out EP
The creative Art Is Hard stable seems an ideal home for Breathe Out – the stage-name of choice for the experimental pairing of Alex Clegg and James Goodhead , whose roots are reputedly to be found in unconventional blogging projects. Their five-track, self-titled EP is only the wave-making label’s fourth release (their first catalogue number was given to a T-shirt, their third to a trio of cassettes offerings), and, in keeping with that tradition, it hits the shelves under the guise of a “photozine” – a 16-page collection of the band’s own shots that also does the job of enclosing the actual CD.
Rounded out to a band proper by Tom Browne and Andy Clydesdale , these East Londoners certainly have a few tricks up their collective sleeve, sidling from fuzzy guitars to horizontal indie with nonchalance, from synth-led pop to caustic punk with glee.
All this lends the EP a sort of non-nuclear, familial quality. Jostling for position, the frayed noise-pop of the opener, “Green Milk”, sets itself apart as the cool one of the bunch, hitting somewhere between genre champions No Age and, thanks to its loud-quiet-loud guitar structures, the recent, dreamier exploits of Yuck . Subsequently, it also partly recalls Breathe Out’s excellent label-mates New Year’s Evil , and trust us this is no bad thing.
The bookish member of the unit then is “Ride The Waves”, an acceptable mid-paced plodder that acts as a buffer between the opener and “Feathers” – itself very much the anarchist of the group. Chugging along on bass-string static and tinny melodies, it more than invokes the stoner spirit and heavyweight heroics of the Jeff The Brotherhood cut “The Tropics”. Moreover, this chest-beating, alpha moment allows it to take stud duty amongst the EP’s ranks, yet there’s nevertheless a underlying intensity to it that’d warn off all but the more deranged of mates.
Undoubtedly cast as the sensitive type, “1,000,000 Times Before” plays out with acoustic progressions, a choppy, skipping synth beat and an altogether clean vocal line that all makes it seem like the product of a different band. That is until the fuzzy synth line and melancholic harmonies of the closer “Elite/Corrigans” – the academic of the family – confirm it to be anything but a fluke.
Sibling rivalry providing results through competition, brotherly love acting as exemplary glue, Breathe Out have an enviable dynamic and, pooling their resources, they flex their way across genres, gaining maximum exposure, making themselves both seen and heard as they go.
~The Breathe Out “photozine” EP is limited to a run of 100 and is out now on Art Is Hard .~