Perkins & Federwisch - ...something known as music

 

Released: May 4

The last time I heard from Perkins and Federwisch, it was on their addition to Strategic Tape Reserve’s Learning by Listening collection that told us about a variety of strange places to visit. But this time around, they dip their feet into the world of electronic pop with …something known as music. Or at least electronic pop as they see it. The two trade off providing vocals that range from clean and clear to vocoded and glitchy throughout the album but never fail to provide a heartfelt tone. All of this emotional engagement is accompanied, and sometimes cleverly subverted, by a plethora of odd glitches and errant tones. 

The second track on the album “Chromium Dump” is one of these seemingly overly emotional vocal deliveries, but it’s truly odd after carefully listening to the lyrics. Apparently, the singer is rather unhappy about the lack of care to the informative voice message he sent to a group chat. It’s kind of an odd juxtaposition, but the album is filled with nothing but these weird combinations of tones, moods, and content; even up to the somewhat surprising end. Picking apart the lyrical content was one of the harder things for me to do, but this is only because the rest of the album has so much ear candy that seemingly happens all at once over and over again. Surely these two are destined for pop fame any time now.