Doldrums‘ 2013 LP Lesser Evil, out now on Artbus/Souterrain Transmissions, is one of our favorite records of the new year. With many of the tracks recorded on his friend Claire Boucher’s (Grimes) laptop, until it broke, the new album finds Canadian artist Airick Woodhead really honing in on his lush brand of extravagant, electro-pop! The Toronto native came to prominence back in 2010 with a series of videos and websites for fictional bands. During that time Woodhead was also a important member of Toronto’s DIY music and art community, throwing all-night parties at Everlasting Super Joy, a communal venue and live space he shared with DD/MM/YYYY. These parties would be important in shaping his sonic aesthetic, and in talking about them with Evan Minsker of Pitchfork he explained, “There would be like 300 people dancing, and the noise musicians who lived here would usually do a set. A really interesting cross-genre pollination happened, because the noise people were playing alongside a lot of dance people. That’s where I take my most influence.” And, indeed you can hear that, as musically, Lesser Evil is a noisy and intoxicating mash-up of soaring styles, relentlessly creative and rhythmic. The track “Lost In Everyone” displays the outstanding balance this artist can maintain while employing his experimental approach within the confines of a pop song. Here, Doldrums’ slightly sinister, abstracted tones give way to a skittering array of stuttering beats, with Woodhead’s skewed, childlike vocals able to carry real emotive weight. The video for the song was shot with an impeccable eye for detail by Angus Borsos in tenebrous tones of black and white, and it stars Woodhead against a dramatic array of backdrops that change in scope and tone for surreal results.
