Exploded View - Obey (Sacred Bones)

Exploded View make organic machine driven music fit for getting lost in and Obey demands listeners disappear into its inky depths

Obey opens with a piece called “Lullaby”, which is darkly beautiful in its own way. But let’s face it, the only circumstances under which this is a lullaby, is if you’re trying to get the baby from Eraserhead to go to sleep. In which case welcome to the wonderful world of Exploded View. Traveling through the labyrinthine corridors of Obey is rather like making your way through the worlds behind/within/beyond the convenience store in Twin Peaks. Therein a liminal lever acts as cosmic railway switch, shifting destinations. Who’s to say the same isn’t true between tracks here?

“Open Road” is shadowy dream pop, Annika Henderson channeling Nico. That “Dark Stains” then launches out of the inky black with Throbbing Gristle thrust is not so much a shock to the system as a gloved hand punching the air. TG gives way to Joy Division structure and is exactly what post-punk industrial dreams are made of. Did I mention these are both brilliant pop songs? Let’s not stop there. “Gone Tomorrow” completes an outsider dark pop trilogy by remaking Geogaddi-era Boards of Canada; distant/worn electronics become a Berlin lament.

On “Letting Go of Childhood Dreams”, Henderson could almost be Trish Keenan, her bandmates Hugo Quezada and Martin Thulin offering up a stripped back psychedelia with hints of Broadcast. Exploded View may cast occasional shadows of their influences, but there is no anxiety at play, for they have made this sonic and lyrical territory peculiarly theirs.

“Like the way you crave those things you shouldn’t”, says rather than sings Henderson on “Rant”, an exercise in restrained noise. For Obey is indeed concerned with notions of want and need. Exploded View’s industrial experimental pop acts like a narcotic sealed into the bloodstream, a gateway drug into Obey’s closed-off universe. It’s one of the most complete and overwhelming recent releases on Sacred Bones, which should give some indication of how special a record it is.

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