Love of Diagrams - Mosaic

Thu 8th Mar, 2007 in Music Reviews

If I could draw you a diagram I would. Maybe it would help, maybe it wouldn’t, but for now words will have to do. So bare with me. Imagine a straight line – up, down, diagonal. Well, that is not Love of Diagrams. The path currently taken by the much-admired Melbourne trio may be pointed skywards, but it has been far from a lineal progression.

Choppy times call for spiky responses, and Love of Diagrams work the angles.

With the release of Mosaic Love of Diagrams – Antonia Sellbach (vocals and bass), Luke Horton (guitar and vocals) and Monika Fikerle (drums) – have reached the third, and most critical stage in the refinement of their sound. A step up, if put in simple visual terms, but, still, a step back from the sense of a beckoning 15th floor ledge conjured by the pure over-exuberance of previous recordings. The abrasive aural assault of 2003 album The Target Is You invoked an “instrumental Sonic Youth” tag, while follow-up EP We Got Communication, added call-and-response vocals and a whole heap of nervous tension. In comparison, the new album first appears restrained. Initially it leads you to wonder ‘why are they holding back?’ but that implicitness soon reveals itself to be an old-fashioned, well-worked tease.

But, still, Mosaic supplies much to be thrilled by. For starters, what could be a more exciting anticipation-generator than signing to US mega-label Matador (home to Yo La Tengo, Pavement and Cat Power)? Does the metaphorical stamp of indie-approval make this a brilliant album? No, but the songs do. The twelve tracks, with the exception of perhaps ‘Pace and the Patience’ (the single), work due to ice-cold efficiency than outright wow-factor.

Recorded with Bob Weston of Shellac at the esteemed Electrical Audio Studios in Chicago, the album is a polished update of your favourite post-punk sounds – not so much no-wave as now-wave. The playing it tight; anchored by relentless bass and skittering drums and topped by forceful, angular guitar. It’s a timeless template made to sound dated by so many. But, power in the right hands…

Lyrically the album is repetitive, you could even say emotionally barren, but it may be better to view Sellbach’s generally deadpan (decidedly un-Australian) delivery, and Horton’s slightly more impassioned interventions, more as instruments. In that respect the vocals duck and weave urgently as if the guitars, bass and drums were attempting to carry out the threat of silence. Opener ‘Form and Function’ and ‘Trouble’ towards the end are perhaps the best, most exhilarating examples of this in action. Much of the rest on Mosaic is relatively one-paced, but confidently executed so as never to totally lose the listener’s attention.

Mosaic is hardly the leap into the great unknown that some may have been anticipated following the penning of the Matador record deal but it is an assured stomp nonetheless. Diagrammatically speaking it is simple – a perfectly implemented tick.