Chris Irregardless - Why Don’t Pictures Like This Ever Trend?

 Released: April 25

With a rather tongue-in-cheek title, this newest EP from Florida-based Chris Irregardless feels really uncanny and strange. For me, it’s the naming conventions present through the album that set a certain tone for all the tracks, evoking that odd new landscape we have to inhabit in which borderline absurd marketing techniques are combined with obvious forgeries and fake images. Even from the start, there’s some rather dry drums that sit in this very weird spaces of uncomfortable pad-driven harmonies on “Rank and Serpent.” It feels like it should be relaxing but there’s some strange undertone that makes the track feel just ever-so-slightly “off.”

The EP largely follows this established motif, although in arguably different ways. “Perfect for the Enitre Family” has this feeling that it is always just a few second from breaking into a full dance-like arrangement but it never actually does. Instead we use get a rather continuous four on the four-like pulse with something that sounds like an old fire alarm bell. “The Crispin-Buxley Phenomenon in Music” is a similar vibe, constantly giving the impression it might take off at any moment but never does. Although with this one, I really liked the weird delirium feeling that the seemingly random bit of percussion give against the backdrop of dark ambient noise pads that are altogether atonal. 

This album is kind of a split for me. On the one hand, the compositions are disorienting and feel kind of non-human. But on the other hand, I really enjoy the theme and commentary presented here, going so far as to name the entire EP after a caption for a Facebook post that your grandma might reply “AMEN’ to. It all feels weird, unreal, and unsettling. Which I find thematically quite fascinating.