Classifieds - Exit Irene

 Released: October 10

Exit Irene, the second album released by experimental project Classifieds, is a noisy little collage of sound and music that thrive on the clash between the two. It goes from dissonant and unkempt to something a bit more subtle and unclear, sometimes within single tracks. There’s no particular rhyme or reason to the jumble, but it has a certain charm in that free-form wandering that allows some neat happy little accidents to happen. 

One of my favorite pieces here is “Oriole,” simply because it seems to stand out. It is the only track here that can be considered to have some type of a rhythm. And while it is a rhythmic structure, it is song the most basic you’ll hear - a simple single snare that sounds like it may be coming from the world’s cheapest and most portable drum machine. It plugs along as deep and foreboding static drones sizzle and rumble alongside, with a bass rumble that feels threatening and maybe even malevolent. But this unnerving track filters straight into the next favorite of mine, “A Saint Visits Monte Fidalgo.” It has an equally foreboding drone to it - maybe not equally, but it certainly keeps the mood going - but contains sketchy and lo-fidelity dialogue as well that adds a certain level of chaos to the track that was missing in the previous one. 

There’s main focal point of the album is the drones, but don’t expect something relaxing and gentle. Distortion saturates every one of them, creating these thick and impenetrable walls of sound that oddly hypnotize and discomfort at the same time. This was a characteristic feature of this album that provided a certain grounding theme. And it works quite well, especially as some of the subsequent tracks add in different flavors of chaos to create a certain tension in the listening experience.