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Duuude, Tapes! Sphagnum, Lodge 318

Posted in Duuude, Tapes! on July 11th, 2014 by JJ Koczan

Manitoba instrumental bass/drum duo Sphagnum take their name from a slow-growing underwater moss, so despite their pornogrind logo, one doesn’t necessarily come into their debut Lodge 318 tape expecting blastbeats. The four-track self-release toes the line between an EP and a demo by being the first outing from the band — bassist Doreen Girard and drummer Cameron Johnson — and keeping to an under-25-minute runtime, but the fact they believe in their material enough to do a professional physical pressing at all (imagine such a thing!) makes me inclined to lean more toward EP, and ultimately it matters little either way. Girard and Johnson keep a minimal, vibe through parts alternately sparse or overwhelmed by distortion, depending which pedal is kicked on, and Lodge 318 has a live, in-the-room feel while still coming across clearer than a simple rehearsal recording.

There are a lot of bands out there calling themselves “doom jazz,” and to their credit, Sphagnum don’t take it that far — they call it the more charming “dad rock,” among other things — but their open, feel-it-out-along-the-way approach winds up with a jazzy feel anyway during parts of “Winter Clover” as the time signatures seem to go out the window in favor of lurching spasms of low end and crash. Johnson brings some order via a steady kick later in the track, but both he and Girard seem to revel in the freakout side of things. The shorter “How Can the Wind with its Arms,” which opens side one, gets on a bit more of a steady roll, though with just the bass and drums for the duration, a strange or absurdist sensibility remains in the near distance, the two players managing well a rare feat in being a heavy bass/drum two-piece in this day and age without immediately sounding like Om.

Part of that has to be tone. You can hear a bit of Cisneros on side two’s “Summerfallow” if you force your ears to do it, but Girard‘s tone seems less bent toward peaceful aims, and if Sphagnum are looking for enlightenment, they’ve got a funny way of showing it. Johnson winds his way along the toms and “Summerfallow” kicks into full-tone assault before dipping back down to the open atmospheres and slow crawl from whence it came, and a silence precedes the foreboding cymbal hits and rumble of 7:49 “Remain in Light.” If there’s anywhere on Lodge 318 where one can imagine vocals topping the proceedings, it’s on the relatively straightforward first couple minutes of the closer, though by the time they’re halfway through, Johnson and Girard are bounding along angular tom runs and bass punctuation which in turn lands them in a quiet couple seconds before the final distorted explosion — a tone dripping in mud met by steady cymbal work to create a tension that’s nigh on excruciating.

And that’s how they leave it. Even Lodge 318‘s payoff retains its course feel, and rather than bring the song to quiet, as on the preceding “Summerfallow,” they end “Remain in Light” cold on the march. Flipping the tape back over, it’s easy to get the feeling that, in the longer run, Sphagnum will branch their sound out more, experiment with different instrumentation, arrangements, and that various elements and influences will show up alongside what they present here. In that sense, Lodge 318 comes across like the beginning point of a progression about to be undertaken and all the more warrants the physical presence. If these songs are any indication, Girard and Johnson have the potential to get plenty weird, and that suits me just fine.

Sphagnum, Lodge 318 (2014)

Sphagnum on Thee Facebooks

Sphagnum on Bandcamp

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