Dogs Versus Shadows & Nicholas Langley - 16mm

 Released: April 3

In their follow up to their 2024 album, Dogs Versus Shadows & Nicholas Langley return with 16mm, on again exploring their very particular blend of musical influence that veers in musique concrete, drone, and generally strange soundscapes. Over the course of 19 tracks, we are re-introduced to the drifting, mildly chaotic, and sometimes unexpectedly rhythmic composition style of these two artists melding their equally oddball methods together. The album begins on a quiet and rather ambient note with “A Rogue Golden Arch,” which generally remans soft and atmospheric but with an undercurrent of grinding noise that slowly seethes beneath the surface. While it opens things up, it doesn’t define the sound of the album at all. The ambient noise vibes are quickly supplanted later on with “This Loop Kills Fascists,” a grainy lo-fi sample exploration that has a vaguely rhythmic quality among its distorted voices and noises.

Between these two points is where the bulk of the album falls. It feels noisy but also soft and charming with all of the ear candy one could hope for. There’s a moment later on with the rather short track “Remmyo Nothing” where it feels like reality becomes bent into flatly bizarre territory as indistinguishable voices warp and fracture into something rather trippy and alien. The technique carries on perfectly into the next track, “One Magic Camera.” The spinning swirling voices are replaced with airy and atmospheric whispers now set in an equally strange landscape the emanates a gritty and grainy grayscale aesthetic. 

If there is one thing that this duo can do perfectly, it is creating a positively surreal experience. The tracks drift for on to the next rather feeling like there is any real separation. The use of voices throughout the album is one of the most critical elements to the surreality as they often come across like they are being manifested out of an ether rather than being spoken to us. They function as a sort of reinforcer of oddity rather than anything meant to ground the listener back to real world. Their use is so effective that their abscence in some of the tracks stands out, though these tracks feature all manner of other elements to keep the trippy vibes going, like the shuffling rhythms of “Wet Day Covid” or the slightly janky swirling tones of “Cat Food Product Placement.” In short, it’s all very delightfully weird stuff that you should put directly into your ears.